


Heaven's Descent

by KageKashu



Series: Heaven's Descent [1]
Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Other, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageKashu/pseuds/KageKashu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is killed again, and brought back, fifteen years earlier. Something's changed about our favorite angel, and even he doesn't know the whole of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Commands of God

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone else seems to have a so-and-so got sent to the past somehow and changes things, often for the better, or weirder. Spoilers up to the end of Season 5 of Supernatural.  
> All I own is the weird stuff from my brain, and even some of that is just borrowed. Anything SPN is Kripke, SG1 is MGM, BtVS is Joss, and whatever others got their fingers in the copyrights cookie jar.

* * *

In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. 

_As His voice echoed throughout the gray, so very young universe, with his first command, "_ LET THERE BE LIGHT _", the first angels were born, in batches, in pairs, and sometimes singly in spots of bright luminescence. Each angel knew its name and its purpose immediately, and sang with joy at existing. The angels drew together, over time, and carried out their first order..._

The cosmos, devoid of anything but chaos at that point, shuddered. The First War had begun. 

* * *

The new angel sang. It sang with joy, at first, tremulous strands of song leaking out into the empty gray surrounding its being. Greatly distant, other lights also sang, but the lone angel didn't hear them; it was lost in its own song. 

The angel's voice was sweet and gentle, and for a short span of time (the fluttering of a heartbeat, or perhaps several years) just singing was enough to allow it to remain happy. Soon, however, it realized that it was completely alone. It couldn't serve its purpose alone, could it? Its song took on a note of fear. 

* * *

The angel's voice was sweet and rough. It still sang, voice having gone hoarse with time (no mere heartbeats, more like centuries, millennia). It still knew joy at its existence. It also knew the terrible pain of loneliness. Its song ripped through the gray of the cosmos, the raw desperation in its voice kept away the miasmas of chaos, and its own personal light never faltered, only grew brighter the longer it was alone. 

Castiel, like all of the other angels, knew that part of his purpose was to bring light and order to the cosmos. Even alone, he would do his best to fulfill that purpose, until He spoke again, giving Castiel further purpose. 

* * *

Castiel contemplated the past, his own creation, even as he contemplated the concept of Free Will… and his current orders. He had actually begun to grow used to having to figure things out on his own. After his disobedience, and his destruction and mysterious resurrection, he had rather begun to think he was truly falling, becoming _human_. 

Even now, it wasn't just his superiors who recognized a huge change in him. Uriel asked him if he was going to make like Haniel and tear out his Grace, and Fall, just like her. 

Castiel didn't want to Fall. And he certainly didn't want to give Lucifer the satisfaction of seeing him falter... He would just have to accept this "gift" as a test of faith. There had been something Divine affecting the curse, Castiel was certain, because, even as he had been flicked fifteen years into the past, Castiel had received Revelation for the first time since he had been cut off from the Host. 

He had been given orders. It had been only one word, but it had felt so much like his very first order... One word, it had been " _CHOOSE_." 

* * *

_Sam had said yes, and Lucifer was now at his most powerful. He couldn't give Dean his brother back, but he could interrupt them, Lucifer and Michael. He could interrupt them, and give Dean a chance to do something to change how horribly wrong things were going. So he threw his Molotov Cocktail, watched Michael disappear with a shriek of pain._

He knew exactly what Lucifer was going to do to him for it, too. Lucifer's face (Sam's face) twisted and he snapped his fingers. For the second time, Castiel's body came apart beneath the Will of an archangel. 

* * *

"CHOOSE _." A great voice thundered through Castiel's pain. His minute remaining Grace was bundled up with care, and he wasn't aware again, even as time rewound itself, until..._

Castiel was unable to stop until he rocketed right into his own body. His own golden wings, and the blessed innocence that he had been, blasted into pieces around him. His original self had been completely destroyed. Blackened wings, charred by hellfire, lifted to either side of him, in shock. Uriel, his most constant companion, backed away, unable to comprehend what had just happened. 

All of Heaven shuddered, unable to comprehend the significance of what had just happened. 

Days later, Castiel received Revelation again. In the collective voice of his highest superiors, he again heard the order. "Castiel, choose." 

He asked then, "What am I supposed to choose?" He hadn't really expected a response. 

"You are granted Free Will." 

He was to receive no more orders. 

* * *

Mocking laughter echoed in Castiel's mind, sounding like Sam at his worst, and he raised his hands to his head to try and block it out, and was startled when a nearby presence made its own shock known. "Holy shit! It moved!" The sound of guns coming up accompanied the surprised voice, and Castiel raised his head to eye the interrupting party. Several automatic rifles were already aimed in his direction, but Castiel was more interested in the humans wielding them than the weapons themselves. To think that man's weapons would harm him now... It wasn't enough to make him laugh. 

They were from Earth. Castiel wasn't currently on Earth. He cocked his head at them thoughtfully. He had left Earth to think, after his initial attempt to talk to Dean. It had felt like being banished, only worse, in some ways. Mere banishment was rarely so painful, and although Castiel had learned to accept pain along with his waning Grace, he had never felt it at such a level. 

If the man forefront of the others hadn't strongly resembled Dean (far older, and more responsible, probably), he likely wouldn't have followed them back to whence they came. However, it almost felt necessary that he do so. 

Perhaps... perhaps Castiel could gain allies. 

* * *

_Ping!_ Jack sighed with relief as they finally lost the creepily competent traveling salesman. Because, you know, if he got to another planet, he was definitely good at his job. Too good at his job. _Suspiciously_ good at his job. Creepy, really. Behind him, an unfamiliar voice muttered in a dead language something about Pandora (the only word Jack recognized, and he kind of thought that the language might be Greek). Jack turned to see that, no, they hadn't actually lost the traveling salesman. Jack scowled at the stranger. "Uh, Daniel... Be a good boy and tell me what the hell our tagalong just said. I think I heard something about Pandora's Box?" 

Beside him, Daniel grimaced. "Ancient Greek, I think." Then he turned around to confront the man, on whom the entire SGC guard contingent had sighted in their rifles. Slowly, before gaining confidence, Daniel began to speak, his face scrunched up in concentration. 

And Jack didn't understand a word, but apparently the man standing before the gate had. Louder, and more clearly, he repeated the same words from before. Again, the only thing Jack actually understood was "Pandora". This seemed to signal the start of a complex dialogue between Daniel and the strange man. 

Jack glanced at his watch before studying the man again. Mobile, he didn't look much different than he had when they'd found him sitting like the "thinking man" statue. Bright blue eyes, an unnerving stare and a jaw that looked like it had been in need of a razor for _days_. The eyes had been shadowed before, as though he'd been looking so far inward that there was no more light in them. Now, they just about glowed with interest in what was at hand. It made Jack uncomfortable. "So, Daniel... What is he saying?" 

Daniel shushed him animatedly. "I think I'm getting to the good part..." Then he said something that sounded like a question, and the man tipped his head slightly to the side, with the same unperturbed expression that he'd had throughout the entire ordeal. Then he answered, in several short words, and returned his gaze to the gate. Daniel frowned for a moment, as though the response hadn't been what he had been hoping for, and then sighed. "Okay... To answer your first question, Jack, he was... saying that it never ceases to amaze him how Pandora's curse has become so... thoroughly entrenched in humanity." 

"I take it that there was more to it?" Jack pursed his lips, glaring at the intruder. He made no threatening motions, just continued to study the gate's locking mechanism as though it held all the answers to the most important questions in life. Jack knew that the locking mechanism held no such answers. He had scrutinized it often enough himself that he knew better than to think it did. 

"Uhm..." Daniel shrugged and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Well, he implied that we have a lot more curses than that, on us... and... I think he thinks that Self Determination is a curse." 

"Only during hockey season," Jack replied before he could help himself. The strange man turned and gave him this intense and inscrutable look. It only made the man creepier in Jack's mind. It felt like his head was being opened up and scrutinized. He shrugged and continued without thinking about what he was saying, "Right. Anyway... So, could you," he waved Daniel's attention back toward the man who _still_ stood just before the gate's locking mechanism, "ask him just what the hell he is? Maybe get a name?" Yeah, so that Jack could stop thinking of him as the "creepy traveling salesman". 

Only a few words were out of Daniel's mouth before the man interrupted with, "Castiel." 

"Was that a name, or a what?" Jack prodded. 

Daniel let out a frustrated sigh. "That was, as far as I can tell, a name. He's getting less than forthcoming." 

Jack frowned thoughtfully at the places that Sam and Teal'c were supposed to be. It was a bit of a wonder that he hadn't noticed their departure. "Well, uhm... I guess you should... continue with your questioning. Get these guys to dump him in a cell or something. Call General Hammond. I'm sure he'll know what to do about this." He shrugged as he walked down the ramp, away from creepy Castiel, and away from Daniel, who didn't look too happy about Jack's decision to make like a tree. 

If asked, later, Jack would tell Hammond quite adamantly that it was not his fault. After all, he had warned them, over the radio, to close the iris once all of SG-1 was through the gate... And they had. It wasn't his fault that traveling salesmen don't know when to quit. 

* * *

Castiel stared thoughtfully through the mirrored glass wall. He suspected that the humans on the other side didn't realize that he could see them, just like they didn't seem to realize that he spoke English better than any of them. Of course, that was just him being cautious. Dean would be surprised that Castiel took what he said so seriously, but Dean hadn't realized that he had become the one and only other person that Castiel could truly respect. Even if he lost a bit of that toward the end... 

Of course, he took Dean's words seriously. _When you get thrown into a weird situation, especially with official looking people, play dumb. Pretend not to know English, or something. You'd be surprised what people will say around someone that they think doesn't understand them._

These humans were under the impression that Castiel would calmly remain where he was, indefinitely. They were right that he would remain calm. However, staying put was not on his to-do list. These "NID" persons were abominably arrogant. To think that they could hold an angel... 

Not that he had told them what he was. Perhaps, if Dr. Jackson asked again, he would tell him, but as it was, Castiel felt like being mulish about it. And there was another piece of wisdom that he had picked up from Dean. 

_Don't tell people more than you have to about yourself, Cas, learn to be stingy. It's not like you can take it back once you say it. And not everyone needs to know that you're a damn "Angel of the Lord!"_

The plain interrogation chamber that they thought would hold him was growing rapidly more boring (this didn't use to be a problem for Castiel. He could out wait glaciers, if necessary). He flattened a hand out on the table that they had sat him at, and was surprised at the energy he felt from the table. Castiel eyed the plain white plastic top warily. It was heavy with the energies of others, being held and interrogated, like they obviously intended to do with him. His eyes focused on the nearest human on the other side of the mirrored glass and his lips turned minutely downward. 

Interesting. Castiel felt through the auras attached to the tabletop, his frown growing as he went along. 

There were feelings of terror mixed with a pervasive sense of mismanaged justice, and images of meetings, many many meetings, and interrogations... His gaze intensified on the human, even as he drew his finger across the same three inches of plastic for the fifteenth time. The human was sweating profusely. 

The young man fingered his collar and shifted uncomfortably. Then he turned to the man sitting in the chair next to him. Castiel watched his lips move as he told the other man, "Seriously, he's creeping me out. I'm just going to move... over here." He watched as the young man moved to the other side of his colleague. 

When he again turned to face Castiel, it was to lock gazes with him. It was interesting, again, to watch the color completely drain from the young man's face. Castiel's lips quirked into a very slight smile. " _I'm done here_ ," he murmured, sticking to the Greek that he'd used when speaking with Dr. Jackson. 

Then he took his leave. 

* * *

Daniel thought he could just _die_. He _hated_ inhaling coffee, and having their strange visitor from earlier reappear at his elbow after NID had made off with him... And by "reappear", Daniel really meant "appear out of thin air". So, yeah, he was inhaling coffee, choking, and nearly dieing. "Damnit," he sputtered, and tried to get a decent amount of air into his lungs. Castiel merely quirked an eyebrow and patiently waited out the fit. Daniel wondered how many times the... being had done that to people. " _What brings you back_?" he asked, wincing when he accidentally used a slightly different dialect of Ancient Greek than when he had last spoken with the... being; whatever he was. 

" _I grew bored_ ," Castiel replied, not batting an eyelash. " _There is more of interest over here_ ," he continued, eyeing Daniel sidelong. " _You speak another dialect._ " 

So, he had noticed. Daniel chuckled. " _I had assumed, earlier, that that was the only one you would know. Do you know any others_?" 

" _Many. I once heard a joke about assumptions_." Castiel turned to gaze about the mess hall. The many heads turned their way didn't seem to faze him in the slightest. Maybe he was used to receiving so many weird looks. 

Daniel waited a moment for him to continue, and once it was apparent that he wasn't going to, he prodded. " _What was the joke_?" 

" _Not funny_ ," Castiel replied with a shrug. " _It doesn't suit this language, anyway_." 

It was quite possible, Daniel realized, that he had found Jack's complete opposite. If Jack had a joke, it would be out before it could be censored. In fact, it might be out before Jack even knew he had it. That Castiel would _mention_ a joke, and then not tell it, almost made Daniel's Inner-Jack-Voice squeal with rage. Daniel also wondered what other languages Castiel knew. If he knew Ancient Greek... perhaps he knew Ancient Egyptian. Without warning Castiel, he switched over to Ancient Egyptian. " _What language does it suit_?" 

Again, Castiel didn't skip a beat, and he replied in kind. " _Certainly not this one. You are aware that you've stained yourself_?" 

"Coffee?" Daniel looked down, and sure enough, there was coffee on his shirt from his spit-take. He switched to modern Russian. " _I'll change out of it, soon enough. It's the end of my day, you know. What were you doing there, anyway, when we found you_?" He absently patted at it with a paper napkin. 

" _Thinking about things long unremembered. You are a linguist_?" Castiel's enunciation was as perfect in Russian as in Greek and Egyptian. It was far better than Daniel's, even. 

Daniel figured that he was just going to have to try harder. After all, there's _always_ room for improvement. " _It's one of the things I do_ ," Daniel replied in Latin. " _I've always enjoyed languages. How do you know so many_?" 

" _I'm untouched by most of the curses of humans, and have been around for a very long time_ ," Castiel murmured, Latin perfect as well. 

"And you haven't offered our guest something to drink, Daniel?" Jack's voice called from nearby, a bare second before he was seated across from them, eying Castiel suspiciously. "I'd love to know how he got back here so quick. After all, NID had their claws in him." 

Daniel pushed his glasses back, thoughtfully. "You know, I have no idea. I didn't exactly ask. How _did_ you get back here?" He honestly wasn't expecting an answer when he used English. 

"It would be difficult to explain," the being's gaze was sharp, and focused on Jack. "Although, I believe it would be more polite to speak directly to me, when asking questions." 

To his credit, Jack didn't jump. Daniel did, a little, but Jack remained poised, in spite of the discomfort that Daniel could see. "What the Hell," Jack proclaimed, a scowl firmly set in place. "I thought you didn't speak English!" 

As though intentionally mocking Jack, Castiel turned to Daniel. "It was in this language that I heard the joke about assumptions." His tone was almost absurdly grave, as was the expression in his eyes. 

Daniel barely had to think about it, and the timing was just _perfect. ASS-U-ME_. He almost toppled out of his chair sideways with a loud whoop. Instead he ended up collapsed ungracefully against the table. 

He could barely hear Castiel talking to Jack. "Is it really that funny?" 

"Only when it's true," Jack replied drolly. "Unfortunately, in this case, it's true." Then Jack sighed. "I don't suppose you realize how much trouble you could be stirring up just by being here, huh?" 

A sudden chill stopped Daniel's laughing fit in its tracks. He sat back up, and watched Castiel's face as the... man..? entity..? seemed to think about what he was going to say. Eventually, Castiel frowned across the table at Jack. "I am causing you discomfort?" It sounded like a revelation. 

Daniel tried not to wince when Jack replied. "A lot of it. Obviously NID can't keep you, and you know I wasn't sure if they could from the start, what with you getting past the iris on the gate... How did you do that, anyhow?" 

"With some discomfort," Castiel answered dryly. 

"You actually hit it, didn't you?" Jack looked a little more disconcerted. "That's what I thought when I heard that noise, and then you were there talking about Pandora... I thought it might have been my imagination." 

"One inch of titanium," Castiel murmured. "It would be enough to keep most corporeal creatures from entering this place against your will." 

"Most," Daniel stared. "You said 'most corporeal creatures'. What about incorporeal creatures?" 

Jack stared as well. "Christ! You aren't saying you're a ghost, are you?" 

With a sharp look at Jack, and Daniel was sure somehow that it was in response to the initial exclamation, Castiel replied. "I am not a ghost." And he seemed amused by the fact. 

"Then what are you?" Daniel cut off Jack before he could say anything else. 

This time the sharp look was turned on Daniel. "My name is enough." Something in the gruff tone indicated displeasure with the question. 

Daniel blinked and Castiel was gone. Opposite him, Jack groaned. "I don't like it when anything disappears that easily." 

"Yeah, well... At least you weren't here when he first _appeared_." 

Jack agreed vehemently. 

* * *

It was a while before they saw Castiel again. Jack was _relieved_. After Daniel told him about how the guy had just appeared at his elbow in the mess hall, Jack had been worried that Castiel might pull the same stunt on him. He'd been worried about it for about a week before he gave up and put that worry on other, more deserving things. 

It wasn't that Jack had _forgotten_ the incident. In fact, he was under orders to report if he came into contact with the entity again. But after a month or so, it had become rather unimportant. There always were weird goings on at the SGC, so the thing with Castiel had gone onto a back burner in his mind. 

Now, Jack had a little time off, a few days in town, and the weather was lovely, too nice not to take advantage of. So he went to the park. He'd start off with a little jogging, and then he'd go back and have himself a little PB and J, maybe a beer or two, and take a nap in the sun. The park was mostly empty, and Jack preferred it that way as he jogged along one of several winding paths that went into the cool shade under the trees. 

He nearly tripped over his own feet when he saw Castiel sitting on a bench along his current path. 

Warily, he trotted over to the bench, and when Castiel didn't react to his presence Jack was surprised to recognize the pose as the same one he had initially seen the... entity in. He decided to break the ice with "You do know you're creepy, right?" He _wasn't_ surprised that Castiel didn't so much as flicker an eyelash in reply. "If you stay here long enough, you're going to really freak out some kids, maybe a policeman. If you're lucky, it'll be a gangster." 

He sighed and paced around the bench, wondering if he should wait around to see if Castiel was going to come down from wherever he was. It was more fun to attempt to harass the silent statue when the others were there with him. 

Jack eventually chose to sit next to Castiel and wait. He wasn't about to wait silently, nor was he going to wait all that long, but he really did want to talk to him again. Creepy as it was, talking with Castiel had been interesting, and somewhat entertaining. And it wasn't like Jack had anything else to do today. 

Ten minutes later, in the middle of Stupid Story #10, a silly thing about a hydrophobic dog and a cat chasing it into the surf, Castiel raised his bright eyes to meet Jack's, and once the words stopped flowing, in slowing spurts, from Jack's mouth, he spoke. "When did you realize that you had become an adult?" 

Jack wasn't used to people catching him off guard so easily. He stared, he blinked, he worked his jaw, but no words came out. Castiel waited patiently, with an odd birdlike tilt to his head, his eyes as earnest as those of a child. It was kind of like when Charlie... Jack shook his head. He wasn't going to let his thoughts go there. "You. Are. Strange. Is there a reason for this question, or are you just screwing with me?" 

"It is a legitimate question. From what I understand, and I've come to realize that I don't understand as much as I thought I did, humans aren't considered adult until they are capable of taking responsibility for their own actions." Castiel's gaze remained intent, but the brief resemblance to Charlie had disintegrated with his words. "I realize that there is a specific age at which they are assumed to be so, but that it isn't always the case." The speech was weighted in a way that Jack wasn't sure he understood. 

"I had it on a trial period," Jack said, deadpan. "When I joined the military, it was confiscated, just like my bunkmate's magazines." 

Castiel surprised him by pulling a face. "You are just like that man," he sighed, shaking his head. "A serious question is not meant to be answered directly, by his philosophy." Castiel moved forward on the bench to lean forward and stare at the ground. 

Jack shrugged his shoulders. "I may not be willing to answer, but I'm willing to listen." He studied Castiel's bowed head, with its messy dark brown hair. He couldn't see the entity's eyes at the moment, but remembered them as being blue; a bright, crystalline blue. "There had to be a reason for you to ask the question, even if I didn't answer it well enough for you." 

"I have recently realized such for myself." The tone was as gruff and flat as before, but somehow, the words sounded pained. "The consequences of my actions truly are mine to face. Responsibility is mine to take. And there are some things that still cannot be changed." Now Jack could swear that he heard anger. Castiel frowned up at him, though his crystal blue eyes remained inscrutable. It was character trait that was really starting to bother Jack. "This is not your burden to bear." Then he turned his eyes to look out at the park, and away from Jack again. 

"Maybe not, but there's always the chance that I may be able to help," Jack offered. People who refused help when they needed it also bothered him. "Not sure how, but... What actions?" Because really, how could one figure out consequences and how to deal with them if one doesn't know what caused them? 

But Castiel shook his head again. "There is little you would be able to do. And the information you ask for..." Castiel sighed. "I am under a geis, and there are things I cannot speak of, though I would. What I can say is this: I have been given a gift and curse of foresight. While I have knowledge of what is to come to pass, I can only interfere in things that will not affect one specific aspect of the future. It is unfortunate that this aspect is what I most wish to interfere with." 

Jack was silent for a long moment. "That's heavy." Of course, it had to be heavy, if it was wearing down this non-human entity. "On a side note: is there a reason you wouldn't tell me and Daniel what you are?" 

"It would not change things, for better or worse," Castiel allowed. "There is little point in saying it." His eyes closed and a slight frown crossed his face. "No," a headshake, "there is a point. I just don't want to say it." 

"Ooh kay," Jack muttered. "Is there anything you actually want to say?" Somehow, he kind of doubted it. In fact, his doubt was proven right when he blinked, because when he opened his eyes, Castiel was gone. He frowned at the empty space that the entity had left behind, thoughtful. "Oh, right," he grumbled, "I have to report this, don't I?" 

* * *

Castiel kind of knew what he needed to do. He needed to find a way to prevent the apocalypse. Or, in lieu of that, find a way for the apocalypse to go well. Unlikely, true, but he thought that that was what he was being given the chance to do. Unfortunately, he'd discovered some of his limits while trying to plan. 

He couldn't see Dean. Well, this wasn't actually technically true. He could _see_ Dean. He could _watch_ Dean. He could watch Dean, terribly young, and surprisingly naïve, talk a girl he barely knew out of her pants with her parents only a single room away. He couldn't talk to Dean. He couldn't interfere with Dean. Or Sam, for that matter. Or Bobby. 

Sam, of course, was all teenaged awkwardness and legs, and quite shorter than he had been when Castiel had last seen him. And his _soul_... his soul was so much lighter. In a way, he was just like Dean, sweet, naïve, innocent... 

It hurt Castiel to watch them, knowing he couldn't interfere. Knowing that, by not interfering, he may as well be condemning them to growing just as bitter as he knew they were when he met them; condemning them to a future in which Dean _wanted_ to die. Dean had been so tired, as long as Castiel had known him. 

There were others, Castiel found, that he couldn't interfere in the lives of. There were so many people that affected Sam and Dean in their paths, and Castiel often didn't know who they were until the geis constricted around him, tightening his throat and not even allowing him to speak. Even when he had tried to speak to Jack, he had felt the chains tightening painfully in his Grace. The only thing he could think of as to _why_ it had occurred was that Jack, upon gaining Castiel's knowledge, would have attempted interference as well. 

Of course, that just presented him with more difficulties. Perhaps he should seek advice again. Talking to Jack had been a lot like talking to Dean. He had enjoyed their previous conversation, until his thoughts boiled up to a point where leaving was the better alternative to returning to the state in which Jack had found him. 

* * *

Jack O'Neil had been seated at a desk, in a dull little room, reluctantly pursuing copious amounts of paperwork when Castiel found him. He was also deep within the belly of the earth, under a mountain commonly referred to, by humans, as Cheyenne Mountain. The inhabitants thought of the place as the SGC, or Star Gate Command. Not that Castiel hadn't already been in this facility before. He just hadn't been in this part of the facility. 

The office wasn't spacious. It was narrow and cramped, and barely seemed to have enough room for the desk and the papers strewn across it, much less the man behind it. Castiel supposed that Dean would have been just as disgruntled in that position as Jack was. He considered whether or not to interrupt the man. 

After thirteen minutes of internal deliberation, he concluded that Jack would probably be grateful for an interruption of almost any sort. Not that Castiel would be interrupting anything. Jack was mostly just staring at the paper in front of him, bopping the end of his pen against it, eyes unfocussed. He hadn't even looked up once in the time that Castiel had been in the room. 

Castiel cocked his head slightly, just before opening his mouth to speak. "I have another question for you," he said, voice soft. He had been hoping to avoid startling the man, but had failed rather spectacularly. Jack flailed for a moment, eyes wide and darting, before dramatically holding his hands to his chest as though having a heart attack. 

_-"Knocking, Cas, ever hear of it?"-_

"Damnit, don't _do_ that!" Jack's tone would have matched Dean's in any number of similar situations. 

Castiel frowned. "I should have knocked?" He hadn't meant for that to be a question, but it seemed appropriate once stated as such. He nodded thoughtfully. Corporeal beings tended to listen for corporeal signs that they were not alone. Knocking in the future would perhaps be wise. 

"Well, duh, yeah." Jack scowled. Again, it was something that Castiel would have expected of Dean. Jack directed his scowl at the paper that he had _not_ been looking at and dropped his pen with a sigh. He then folded his hands together and looked expectantly at Castiel. "Well? Fire away." 

Castiel hesitated. "I..." Now he wasn't even sure what it was he wanted to ask. "You seem well grounded," he stated. His eyebrows furrowed. 

"What me are you looking at?" was the sardonic reply. Jack shuffled the papers on the desk restlessly. "That didn't really sound like a question, though." He raised an eyebrow in query. "You do have one, right?" 

"Saying a 'question' was possibly misleading," Castiel allowed, with one short nod. "It is more that I come seeking advice." 

After a long moment of silence, Jack began shuffling his papers again, possibly in an attempt to hide his confusion. "Well? Out with it." 

"I have rarely had the... opportunity to be alone." This was not quite the truth. Castiel _had_ only ever been truly alone recently (not counting when he had originally come into being). He paused for a moment, his gaze even with that of the human. "It is something that seems to remain a constant for humans, however." The man shifted uncomfortably in his seat and waited for Castiel to continue. "My kind are not meant for this condition, I fear." And he did; fear it, that is. While he did feel immeasurably better than he had been getting before, he still felt rather hollow. Before, it had felt like slowly dying in excruciating pain. By comparison, his current condition was... healthy. 

The tip of Jack's pen bobbed in the air for a moment, before coming to rest against the man's lips. "How typical are you of your kind, Cas?" 

Both the question and the truncated version of his name caught Castiel off guard. "Rather not," he replied in what he hoped was a dry tone, meant to disguise the fact that Jack had unsettled him greatly. "That is as should be." 

"Are there others similar to you?" 

And _that_ also was unsettling to think about. "Technically," he acknowledged. He wasn't even sure if he was Fallen, anymore. He certainly had his _Grace_ , and he wasn't cast out, but Heaven hadn't felt _right_ anymore. 

"Well, if you can't stand being alone, and you can't talk to most of your kind," Jack shrugged, "then shouldn't you at least try to talk to the ones closest to you?" While Castiel soaked up that thought, Jack's eyes rose toward the camera imbedded in the ceiling, and he mused, "I wonder if I can write this off as Divine Intervention?" 

"If you wish," Castiel replied absently. Fallen or not, the Fallen were probably the closest Castiel would be able to find to himself. Seeing things as he had, Castiel certainly had more of an understanding of what the Fallen _were_. After all, hadn't he been Falling? It was possible that many of the Fallen would be similar to him. It was also more than likely that they were cast out for far greater crimes than Castiel's own. 

Jack's eyes were narrowed on him when he looked back up. "That's some pretty heavy consideration, there. What's to think about? You either go or don't go, right?" He shrugged eloquently. "There's no need to agonize over it. This is coming from someone who knows. Besides, if it's important, you kind of have to, right?" 

Jack O'Neil had a very good point. If nothing else, this was _very_ important, to Castiel, at least, if not the whole world. 

* * *

_If I was one of the Fallen of Old, where would I hide_? Castiel was so high above the earth, looking down, that the horizon curled in on itself, spherically. From his viewpoint, it was not quite a full sphere, not unless he turned in place, but it was still quite spectacular. Unfortunately, even viewing almost the entirety of North America didn't solve his dilemma. 

Gabriel, he rather thought, would be one of the easiest to talk to. Somehow, the idea of speaking to Gabriel, even in light of his brother's sacrifice (perhaps especially in light of), wasn't appealing. Haniel was out of the question, no matter how close they had been in the past. She was human now, and a small child, at that. They were the only two Fallen (Gabriel was only on a technicality) that he had personally known, and he couldn't bring himself to try to go and see either of them. 

Another Fallen that could be easily struck from his list was Azazel. Not that he particularly knew what the demon was up to around this time, anyway. Of course, the only thing he wanted with Azazel was to smite him. Although, judging by his previous lack of success in speaking to Dean, he doubted his own ability to do that. 

But the first to Fall... that had always been Kushiel, hadn't it? Castiel didn't particularly wish to see the Punisher, either. Actually, the thought made him psychosomatically queasy. Even before the War Kushiel had been a rather frightening presence to the angels, Castiel included. It had been universally agreed that he had been tainted by the miasmas, and that that was the reason behind his apparent insanity. 

Castiel could barely recall the few meetings he had had with Kushiel. At the time, he had been running errands, too new to the more organized garrisons for them to make much better use of his presence. He had been noted, and summarily dismissed from mind as the news he brought had been far more important than _him_. Castiel highly doubted that Kushiel would even remember him as being anything other than an errand runner. 

One large reason, aside from Kushiel's apparent insanity, that Castiel would rather _not_ see Kushiel was the fact that Kushiel resided just inside the gates of Hell, and had since before the War and the Great Fall. Castiel had already been in Hell once. He certainly didn't look forward to going there again. Just like seeing Kushiel, the thought of returning to Hell made Castiel queasy. 

On the other hand, even getting into Hell, for an angel, is a _big_ thing. The easiest entrance was, oddly enough, in Heaven itself. There was no way Castiel wanted Heaven to know what he was doing or even that he was doing anything. That meant that going to Heaven to get to Hell wasn't going to happen. 

There were other routes, of course, but the further from Heaven they lay, the more difficult the passage. From Earth... Earth was a halfway point. There were several routes from Earth to Hell that Castiel knew of. Knowing of them, however, didn't mean that he knew where each one lay. 

Castiel scanned the planet beneath him, north to south, and again, looking for inconsistencies in Earth's energies. On the North American continent, further north than the northernmost part of the Gulf of Mexico, lying very close to the Pacific Ocean, was a likely looking place. From so high, it barely looked like anything, but there was a human town there. He decided to take a look from a closer perspective. 

* * *

Jesse had gotten pretty far ahead of Xander and Willow. They called out for him to slow down, but he took a perverse glee in pedaling harder. Even if he stopped now, it would take them a minute or two to catch up. He laughed breathlessly as he sped around a corner and took in the straight stretch just across the street from the High School. He tucked his chin down to his chest as he focused on pouring his energy into his legs. 

Perhaps this is why he didn't see the man standing in the middle of the sidewalk. 

His wheels jerked to a stop as he collided with the bystander and he vaulted head first into the beige trench coat the man was wearing. It was as though he'd hit a brick wall. Then he tumbled down to the pavement, a bit worse for wear. He was still shaking the stars from his eyes when he felt a pair of large, adult hands checking his head for injury. A gruff voice was apologizing from somewhere above him, with something like "I should have seen you", and Jesse wanted to tell the voice to "shut up", because he doubted it was the man's fault. 

When he looked up, he saw earnest blue eyes and a worried frown on a fairly pleasant face. Just beyond the face, there was a weird glow. 

Jesse shook his head again. "Uhn, sorry. Wasn't lookin' where I was going." When he looked back up at the man, the glow was still there. His brow furrowed. "What? Why are you glo...?" He cut himself off. You don't ask questions like that in Sunnydale. "Sorry," he continued, trying to sound appropriately sincere. "I don't see no glow." 

* * *

Somewhere, in another part of Sunnydale, Mayor Wilkins was in a panicked frenzy over the fact that all of the wards he had set over the town were shredded, and in some cases, causing small house fires. Something had ripped through the wards like a jet plane through a spider web, and the mayor was very very worried as to what that might signify. 

Also, very like the spider, Mayor Wilkins was angry about all of that hard work wasted, by what he could only classify as an Act of God. And he dearly hoped that that wasn't the case. 

* * *

The child had moved on, his slightly damaged bicycle making it easier for his friends to keep up with him. Castiel stood in the same place he had been when the bicycle had hit him. He really should have been paying more attention to the place he was going to appear in. If he had been, the child would have had a near miss instead of a collision. The fact that the child could tell what he was, even to such a vague extent as Castiel's "glow", indicated that he was a vessel. 

Castiel wondered if he should keep an eye on Jesse. 

Not that this was an immediate concern. Castiel's immediate concern was about five hundred feet forward and almost as much distance down, directly underneath a _school_. Sometimes he wondered where the justice in this world was. The Hellmouth certainly couldn't have a good influence on the children of Sunnydale. 

Going to Hell, non-physically of course, would require him to put his body somewhere. If he wanted to come back to a whole vessel, he had better leave it somewhere safe. A church, he decided. There were a lot of churches in Sunnydale, he noted. Almost as many churches as there were graveyards. Somehow, that seemed ominous. 

* * *

After all that, Jimmy Novak was pretty sure that he shouldn't still be existing. Thinking back, he and his poor body had really gone through a lot. There was the stabbing, being shot, _having the blood pumping out of his chest as an angel in his daughter's body spoke to him_... Jimmy shuddered. At that point, Castiel was all too willing to let him die. Death would have been nice, even, but not at the price of his daughter going through the same pain as himself; the pain of being an angel's vessel. 

He understood Castiel's motives a lot better now than he had then. In fact, he understood them just as well as Castiel did. Added to that, he understood them so well he may as well _be_ Castiel; although after some thought, both he and Castiel had come to the conclusion that, in spite of everything that had happened, he was still Jimmy. Actually, Jimmy still kind of doubted that. 

Twiddling his thumbs in a small church in Bumf**k California was not really his idea of a good time. It really sucked having to wait in one spot for himself to come back. 

Erh. 

Of course, going through Armageddon as the Vessel of a dying angel was really something. Although, Jimmy still wasn't sure that he was the Vessel so much by that point. He felt as though he stopped being the Vessel when Raphael exploded him all over Chuck's living room. He couldn't remember having a single independent thought after that. He did remember everything that had happened though. He just thought that he _was_ Castiel through it, is all. 

Jimmy wondered if it was blasphemous to pity an angel. 

He fidgeted in the pew, and wondered if it would be okay to go outside and get himself a spot of fresh air. This church that Castiel had found was obviously abandoned and had a bit of major dust build up. The entirety of the small stone chamber rang with the grating sound of the front door opening. The loud sound was followed by a small, very human sounding tap-tap of someone stepping inside. 

Jimmy-not-Castiel looked up as the door grated shut behind a young girl in a bright blue dress. It was already dark outside, though still quite warm. The heat actually made him rather uncomfortable. Without "angel-air-conditioning" (as Dean liked to call these things), his winter clothes were a little too much for Southern California. 

Erh. 

The young girl, not quite prepubescent, probably about fourteen or fifteen years old, stared at him in confusion. "There's never anyone here," she said. She almost sounded offended. 

Jimmy gave her what he thought was a charming smile and shrugged. "Sorry, I'm just waiting for someone." 

She sat down next to him and eyed him sidelong. "How long've you been waiting?" 

"About an hour, so far." He kept his smile, even though he was worried about Cas. One hour was Hell equivalent of what? Five days? He bit his lip and chewed at it. "It shouldn't be too much longer, surely." Although, now that he thought about it, a young girl in an abandoned church after dark struck some alarm bells in his head. "Why are you out so late, miss?" 

The girl smiled shyly and pushed her hair over one shoulder. "It's not safe to walk alone after dark. I thought this would be a safer place." 

Sunnydale sure did have an awful lot of cemeteries. He could see where her conclusion stemmed from. "Abandoned churches aren't much better at night, miss." No matter if an angel was supposed to be coming back soon. 

"I'm Cordelia Chase." She fidgeted in the pew for a moment. "What's your name?" 

He thought for a moment, forcing down the first thing that wanted to come out, instead replying with "Jimmy Novak." 

"That's a cool name," she said thoughtfully. She brightened up considerably. "So, what do you do for a living?" 

Jimmy didn't think that selling radio space was an interesting topic of conversation for a young girl, but she's the one that started talking stock market on him. Stock market was a topic Jimmy could talk with gusto, and it had usually bored both Amelia and Claire to death. No matter how interesting he and Cordelia found the topic, however, Jimmy would still occasionally glance at his watch. The time that passed grated his nerves increasingly. At two hours, he rather thought that it must have been over a week where Cas was. On the third hour, he knew that it had been two. 

Three and a half hours had passed before a noise other than their voices was heard. It was the front door of the church again. When it clanged shut, there was a dark figure standing beneath the door's arches. As the figure looked up at them, Jimmy felt an annoying sinking feeling in his chest. It wasn't human. 

Miss Chase sunk down in the pew against him, her brows knotted in worry. Jimmy wasn't sure if she knew what the creature was, but she seemed to have a child's instincts for what is safe and what isn't. The thing in the door was obviously not safe. Jimmy sighed and tried to think of an action plan. It wasn't really _his_ area of ability, or knowledge, really. Demons and monsters and such were not part of the Novak family lifestyle, not like it was with the Winchesters. Anything Jimmy knew and was capable of was peripheral. It came as a result of possibly semi-merging with Castiel. 

At least, that's what he was telling himself. It didn't mean that he wasn't capable of some things. He was pretty sure he knew how to deal with demons. He was also sure of his Latin, which he hadn't really known pre-Cas. But handling a demon without proper supplies? He wasn't so sure about that. 

The creature at the door seemed to sense that it was being sized up, and cheerfully bared an impressive set of _very sharp_ teeth. It eyed Miss Chase up and down, still grinning, and then focused on Jimmy. "Pedophilia, in a church no less," it remarked. " _Classy_." 

Jimmy felt his face heat up with a disgusted sort of anger, but Miss Chase leapt out of her seat, immediately yelling. "How dare you!?" she howled. "How dare you?" She indicated her chest pointedly. "My bust is too impressive for a Lolita! And I _do_ know what I'm talking about!" 

His hands covered his expression, and Jimmy groaned. "Don't help, Miss Chase, please. You've only made it sound worse." A grimace crossed his face and he stood behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Now, please, you may as well tell me what you are." This was directed at the not-human presence. 

"Oh?" It raised a brow in response. Then it laughed. "Well, aren't you perceptive for a pervert?" 

Jimmy fought to straighten his face out of the contortion it was working itself into. It was like the demon, whatever it was, _wanted_ to be smote. Too bad he couldn't provide. He had to settle for using a firm, controlled, tone when he spoke again, barely refraining from clenching his teeth tightly enough to crack them. "Again I ask, what are you?" Whatever it was, it was probably a danger to both Miss Chase and himself. 

"You can't tell?" And it moved away from the doors, slowly walking down the main aisle before reaching their pew. "Vampire," it said and still grinned. Jimmy's heart sunk a little deeper. He didn't remember dealing with any vampires with Castiel, but he kind of remembered them to be pretty damned invincible. 

Miss Chase was in front of him, he realized. That... well, it wasn't a good thing. She should be behind him, because that would give her a chance to hopefully beat feet while he tried to... commit creative suicide. Jimmy sighed. Life really, really liked throwing him a shit-storm. Seriously, he really _should_ be dead by now. "Miss," he murmured, nudging her in the shoulder. "Perhaps you should get behind me. Run or something, while I try to do something?" 

Miss Chase looked offended again, but when she was about to speak, she actually looked him in the eye. She was still for a thoughtful moment, while the vampire watched, and finally nodded. "Okay," she agreed. 

Jimmy happily switched places with her, and sent a silent prayer for Castiel to hurry the hell up, because he wasn't sure at all of his being able to take care of this. He would try, though. 

He _would_ try. 

* * *


	2. The Road Less Traveled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finding allies isn't what it used to be. Now if only he didn't have to have his mind broken by this trippy ass Garden.

Castiel was a bit surprised at the landscape just inside of the Gates of Hell. Chaotically overgrown was perhaps the best description he could come up with for the plant life surrounding him. Next to him, a brightly colored leaf, with greater length than his entire wingspan, touched the rich earth beneath it. A few feet away, kelp grew, reaching for a nonexistent sky. The leaf's purple veins seemed to pulse vibrantly with life, and Castiel himself paled to insignificance next to it. 

He wondered what its flowers would look like. 

He also wondered about this fake physical bullshit. It certainly suited Kushiel, from what Castiel could remember. Unfortunately, it also echoed many of the things that the other angels had implied about him. He adjusted his wings in a way he never had to while in a human body. They brushed the leaf, and the purple veins began to have an ominous gleam. 

Several smaller plants got up and walked away. Castiel decided that he had better do the same. It was difficult to tell what could harm him here, and he was rather sure that he didn't want to find out just how dangerous the foliage could be. 

Should he walk or fly? The angel stared up past the branches of an incredibly large rhododendron and saw large fish, as though he was walking through a kelp garden deep beneath the sea. Flying _didn't_ seem like the better option, he decided. If a minnow was that big, he didn't really want to see a salmon or a shark... or an alligator. There were probably nastier things up above, and Castiel didn't want to invite their attention. So, walking it was. 

Even other angels often underestimate how difficult it is to walk with wings. Of course, most angels have never had the opportunity to try and do so. The dense, jungle-like flora encroached upon his position more with every step, and he couldn't help that his wings brushed against leaves and brambles of every conceivable color. Castiel suspected that if he had a more botanical bent, he would find it difficult to keep moving, because he was sure that few of these plants existed in any form elsewhere. 

Hidden in the foliage were bestial forms, and they were all watching _him_. Not that the angel hadn't known that already. Castiel was more perturbed by the fact that nothing worse than briars had truly attempted to impede him yet. No matter how strange the area looked, it was still a part of Hell. It may be a part of Hell he and his comrades hadn't gone through when searching for Dean, but it was still _Hell_. 

And with the way the bushes were rucking up his wings, it was _obvious_ that it was Hell. 

A small meadow, beatifically free of things with thorns, and the angel was grateful to come upon it, was right in his path. It looked quiet, though looks could be deceiving, with smaller, less alien looking flowers, and a couple of comfortable looking boulders. He wasn't sure why the boulders looked comfortable. They just did. He supposed that he should take a break, and maybe sit on one. They looked _really_ comfortable. 

Castiel walked straight to the closer boulder. He found it already taken. He decided to sit on the other boulder, which looked decidedly less occupied. He saluted the tiny being on the opposite boulder, and it looked impressed. "You're awfully polite," it buzzed. And it saluted back. 

It was a bee. It was a _strange_ looking bee, but Castiel knew a bee when he saw one. A drone bee, all red plaid instead of black and yellow stripes, and all of one inch tall; it was seated comfortably on the other boulder. He had been right. The boulders _were_ rather comfortable. "There is no reason not to be polite to one's equivalent in rank." The bee was exactly what the angel would have been, were he still in Heaven. 

The bee folded in upon itself, taking a humanoid form, and buzzed over to Castiel's outstretched hand. "Very polite for a visitor to Malik's Garden," the bee informed him. "I would even go so far as to call you a benevolent visitor." It buzzed happily across his hand. "So kind, even, for one with such power, likens himself to me." The bee chortled with glee. "Most of our visitors, Large One, are of the malevolent sort." 

"Indeed," Castiel murmured; the bee was in Hell, after all. Bees rarely evidenced such cheer, except when going about their duties. Perhaps it felt that this conversation was necessary to its duties? Bees were far easier to understand than humans. In fact, they were quite like angels in a way. "I intend no harm here, it's true, but I've come seeking one called Kushiel. Do you know where I may find him?" 

The bee thought long and hard. "I don't know that name," it finally confessed. It even seemed disappointed in being unable to help Castiel. "You are kind to me, and I have little to offer in return." It buzzed unhappily for a moment, then perked up. "I may have something for you!" it finally exclaimed. "It's a warning, passed down by all Things on Wings, and I feel it could be very much help to you... It's a warning, of something that hates us all." It began to recite, 

" _Beware the Jabberwock, my son!'  
_

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! 

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun 

The frumious Bandersnatch! 

... 

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, 

Came waffling through the tulgey wood, 

And burbled as it came! "

The bee paused, and then cocked its head. "I'm sure that there's more to it. They said once that the Jabberwock was killed, but it's a terrible, powerful thing. So I doubt it. Things that hateful don't just _die_." It preened for a moment, joyful that it had remembered something important. 

Castiel thought on the bee's warning. He turned it over in his head, and decided that it could very well be important. He wasn't sure _how_ , but " _jaws that bite...claws that catch_ " sounded nasty, in a way; even if it was disjointed. "Thank you," he replied, both grateful and touched that it felt him to be worthy of a warning. Bees aren't notorious for giving warnings; not even disjointed ones. 

A loud and jolly voice from nearby startled both Castiel and the bee with a cry of "Company! Oh the Joy!" 

The bee gave the angel a sheepish look, and hurriedly made its excuses. "I almost forgot! There's an important battle today, with the Redcoats... Erhm... God save the Queen!" And the bee buzzed off, just in time to get away from the much larger newcomer. 

"Good evening, good evening," cried the jolly tones, and Castiel saw, as the voice approached, a man-like spider. One of its four hands held a cane; another, a top hat, with which it saluted Castiel. 

Bemusedly, he saluted back. 

"It's been a while now, since I've had good company," the spider confided. And Castiel understood spiders a little less than he understood bees. Spiders were, under most circumstances, loners. This one's desire for company baffled him. "Say, you know those damned stupid twins? You wouldn't believe what they've been up to lately..." 

The angel sat back to listen as the spider eventually detailed the glorious (or ignominious) lives of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. And from there, the spider rambled on about all of the other denizens of the Garden, occasionally digressing into his own opinions of the reasons behind certain actions. 

Castiel supposed it would be a while before the spider got out all of his gossip, and so settled in for the long wait. 

Once the spider slowed down, and offered the wayward angel some of the cider it had brought along with it to the meadow, with an apology ("really, should 'ave brought it out earlier, you're so patient...), it waved at the meadow with one of its hands. "Lovely place for conversation, isn't it?" 

"Indeed," he replied, politely. "I don't suppose you know of Kushiel, do you?" 

"Kushiel?" asked the spider. Its lips pursed as it thought. And Castiel knew that spiders didn't usually have lips, but refrained from commenting. "No, I don't know of a Kushiel. Perhaps Malik would know." It didn't really look like it felt that this was a good thing. "And if you're looking for Malik, my boy, be aware that he dwells at the center of this Garden. It's not a place to go, if you don't know yourself through. However, if finding this Kushiel is terrifically important, then he's the one to ask." 

The cider was quite good, so Castiel said so. 

The spider seemed much encouraged. "It's my favorite. You're a kind fellow. Most just try and run, but you listen, and you even like my cider. Well met, really well met!" 

It was _hours_ before Castiel managed a polite getaway. And by that time, he was more than a little inebriated. It would be some time before the drunken angel remembered the spider's warnings, as they had been far less conspicuous than the bee's; though, as he would later find, they were no less important. 

~@~

It was more difficult traveling through the bizarre jungle while drunk. The colors were less distracting, but it wasn't long before the foliage began to speak to him. "Come here," sighed a sweet voiced weeping willow. She was a beautiful tree, Castiel admitted to himself, but he suspected that her healthy glow came from the rotting bones poorly hidden behind her fronds. 

"I think not," he replied dryly. Perhaps there was acid, or some sort of deadly toxins dripping from her branches. He was unsure of how such a thing would affect him here. 

"Why not?" she asked, sounding as naïve as though she didn't know exactly what was feeding her. 

"You're a weeping willow that weeps something dangerous, aren't you?" he asked. Even if she said nay, he still wouldn't step into her foliage. 

"What makes you say that?" Now she sounded slightly guilty; still sweet and beguiling, but definitely guilty. 

"Just a hunch," murmured the angel, eying the bloody bones at her base. Yes, he would go around her, no matter how lovely her foliage. 

~@~

There was another meadow. This one had no comfortable boulders sitting in its middle, just sharp blades of grass, glinting and pointing skyward. An angel could easily fly over it. There were still large dangerous shapes overhead, so flying should probably remain out of the equation. He would have to walk around. 

Halfway around the meadow, a large feline shape draped itself over his shoulders. It hadn't climbed up to the position. It hadn't flown in from over his head. Castiel could only assume that it had _materialized_ right there. If he had made that assumption, he would have been right. 

"Clever, clever," a voice cheered quietly, directly into his ear. His wings puffed up as his back stiffened. "Not to even take a blade for yourself? Not so sure that _that's_ clever, but not to walk through it, yes, you are." Claws dug in as the creature stood, only to face the side of Castiel's head. "And what do you make of yourself?" 

"Little, most times," he replied. Honest enough, especially lately. It wasn't that Castiel wasn't trying. It was merely that he still wasn't certain what he should do. 

"So, the bird is a modest bird," said the cat, a wide grin on its face showing that it had, perhaps, more sharp teeth than a cat ought to have. "But is it an honest modesty, or is his modesty false, like to turn to arrogance when things face perfectly his way?" 

Castiel also wasn't sure exactly what the strange cat wanted. "Modesty is said to be a virtue," he replied with a thoughtful frown. He had never really considered himself as _modest_. "...though I prefer honesty. Neither are true Virtues, however, they are often mistaken for Prudence and Justice." 

"Is that so?" pondered the cat. "Trust an angel to know the difference. I've never heard of a _modest_ angel, though." 

"I am a mere soldier," Castiel replied harshly. "I have no use for modesty. Lying to oneself is a path that leads to death, and not just for oneself." His wings flicked themselves back into order, and he began walking again, not caring that his quick, bouncing (because of his wings) gait was disturbing the cat from its perch. He also found that he had to ignore the claws that dug into his shoulder as the cat showed its displeasure at the disturbance, and it lashed its tail violently into his face. He spat fur from his mouth. 

The cat was silent for a few minutes, possibly due to being jostled. "So," it finally hissed, again in his ear. "Why didn't you take a blade for yourself?" 

_Blade_? He wondered if the cat was talking about the grass in the meadow. "Why should I take that which I don't need?" he asked. It was growing difficult to place his feet on the ground, as there were vines growing more and more thickly, some raised nearly knee height and most of the rest barely a few inches from the ground. It was enough to trip him up, a lot. 

"Don't forget, Angel," the cat murmured. "Don't forget that you _are_ in Hell." 

"Yes?" Castiel paused to give the cat his full attention. He wasn't making much progress with the vines, anyway. 

"Hell has a strange way of providing," the cat continued. "It has a _very_ peculiar way of providing what a seeker seeks. Be careful what you seek. After all, I know what you seek, and how dangerous it is. But if you wish to persist... who am I to stop you? There's a rabbit that works as groundskeeper in this Garden. He'll lead you to what you seek, if you don't tell him you saw me." 

Its weight faded from his shoulder before he could so much as offer thanks. 

~@~

One of the strange things about the Garden, that Castiel noticed, was how obscenely large almost everything was; the fish overhead, most of the flora, and often the fauna he passed along his way. To see something that was equivalent to him in size, or rather, sized as it should be in comparison to his mostly human sized body, was rare. 

When he saw the rabbit, it was a bit shorter than him, about half his height. Soft white fur was ruffled up beneath its red waist coat. It had a watch in hand, and ran back and forth for a moment before exclaiming how _late_ it was, and then it took off running down an actual _path_ that Castiel wouldn't have noticed if the rabbit hadn't been using it. 

It was nice that _somebody_ knew where they were going around here. It was likely that this was the rabbit that the cat had been speaking of. Castiel followed. 

It wasn't long before it ran through a glowing purple waterfall, having whipped out a paper umbrella for the span it was needed. Castiel shielded himself with a wing as he crossed beneath it. 

The waterfall wasn't made of water, and what he had mistaken for water was a strange, glowing purple vapor, that he found himself inhaling against his better judgment. He coughed. _Fake. Physical. BULLSHIT._

Castiel rather thought that his ability to curse was coming along quite nicely. 'Bullshit' was a far better sounding curse than 'Assbutt'. Dean would probably agree. He sputtered a bit more, and then looked around for the white rabbit in the waist coat. 

Instead, he saw a door; a colossal, gold rimmed door, which would take a giant to open. The rabbit was opening the door. The rabbit was _big_ enough to open the door. 

The Garden _was_ a strange place, so far. Castiel understood that. He had rather thought that his mind could withstand its eccentricities. He had been wrong. The angel coughed a couple more times, and the door closed behind the rabbit. He choked a bit on the vapors, and forced himself to breathe again. And he tried to let his mind reboot. 

Cough. Was the door getting smaller? Cough. It was. It was getting rapidly smaller. Soon, the doorknob was at Castiel's waist level. He coughed one more time and stared at the door. What was it that Dean had said? 

Castiel shrugged. "When in Rome..." He opened the door and stepped through. 

The blast of hot air was startling, and the accompanying dust and sand made the feathers of his wings instantly itchy. The discombobulated angel coughed again. This Garden... 

He shook his head. It was probably best not to think about it. For one thing, there were no longer fish in the air above him. However, there was a dust devil leering at him. Castiel considered it an even trade. He looked behind himself to find that the door was already gone. A small herd of very small camels trotted past the angel's foot and he frowned, watching their passage. 

What he really should do, is figure out where the rabbit went. He could ask the dust devil, but the way it was leering worried him. There was no telling what it would ask in return. The camels were already gone, and Castiel vaguely wondered where to. He could have asked them. 

His frown deepened. He _could_ ask the dust devil. 

Somehow he really didn't want to. "Excuse me?" he asked, scowling worriedly. The dust devil perked up, and its leer grew in vulgarity. He coughed again. "Have you seen a rabbit?" 

"Maaaaybe," it suggested, smarmily. "What do I get if I tell you what I've seen?" 

"Ask," replied the angel, "then I can see whether I can grant anything in return." 

"Tis a simple matter," replied the dust devil. "I just wish my letter to be delivered." It wriggled up and down in the air, in a disturbingly suggestive manner, and then produced a letter of browned paper. "I can't get anyone to deliver it for me... They're afraid of My Love." It wriggled in a far more crude manner, at this. 

"I think I see why," he replied dryly. He gave the dust devil a bemused look. "Tell me what you've seen first, and then tell me where to take your letter." Castiel was unsure that the dust devil would agree to his terms. 

"Perfect," it sighed, then wiggled toward Castiel. It was almost around him before he could move. "The rabbit went in the direction of My Fair Lady." It swirled around Castiel, who had to hold his breath in order to keep from breathing it in. The letter was in his hands, and he was being ushered toward the desert sun... which shouldn't be shining in Hell. 

"I take it that I'm supposed to go this way," he murmured as the dust devil finally let go. 

"Ooh, I like you," it smarmed, "you're very quick." 

"Thank you," he replied, trying not to sound sarcastic. Perhaps the sun would go down on him in this desert. He wasn't looking forward to that idea coming to fruition. 

~@~

The angel walked at first. The desert was vast, however, and mostly empty, especially in its skies. He eventually determined the area worthy of flight. It was quite some time before he spotted the rabbit, in spite of this, and it was trekking through the sand at quite a speed. It looked nervously up at him, and kept going, carefully skirting an area where the sand looked more wet than anything else, therefore not safe to travel through. 

By the time he and the rabbit reached the town, it was nearing dark. Shadows descended across the dunes, and as they grew bluish in the dawning night, Castiel thought he could hear the distant roar of the ocean. He wasn't convinced, however, until the rich smell of sea salt reached him. 

The desert was turning to ocean, even as night descended. 

Castiel landed in the town, and the rabbit disappeared. The desert ghost town was coming to life as a cavorting wharf town, with pirates and the like. At least, the angel thought they must be pirates. It was hard to be sure, as the merrymaking was growing louder and louder as _natural_ light disappeared. 

Malik's Garden was a world unto itself, Castiel decided. A matronly woman brushed by him, and he had to double take... That _matron_ was a succubus, and she reeked of both age and, though Castiel's mind told him that it couldn't be possible, virginity. He stared at her bemusedly. Castiel had been feeling that way a lot lately. The things that he was seeing in the Garden only emphasized the feeling. "Excuse me, Miss?" he asked, half-hoping that she wouldn't respond. 

"Yes?" she queried, pulling her skirts close, in a very proprietary manner. 

"I am to deliver a letter," he began, "and I am unsure of the identity of the recipient." 

An eyebrow rose stiffly. "Have you no description of this recipient?" When he shook his head, she asked, "How about a description of the sender?" 

"It was a dust devil, in the desert," he replied, and was surprised when she chuckled. 

"That would be for me, then." She held out her hand, and he placed the dry, crackling paper into it. "For this delivery, I suppose I owe you. Ask for your boon," she ordered archly. Her posture dared him to demand something inappropriate. It dared him to mention what she was so that she could beat him for making assumptions based on her species. 

The angel remained bemused. "I am seeking one called Kushiel, but would settle for information on the location of a white rabbit in a red waist coat." 

She looked surprised. "Hmm..." And she smiled. "I _like_ you. I saw your rabbit, though I know not of this Kushiel. Your rabbit went into the Honeybee Inn. Perhaps he's staying the night?" The smile turned coy. "Thank you, stranger." 

With a swish of heavy matronly skirts, she was gone. 

~@~

He found the Honeybee Inn. He also found his bee friend from earlier. The bee, now of a size with him, was patting its companion on the shoulder. "Hey, see? This is the guy I was telling you about." It nudged its companion's attention in Castiel's direction. "Hey, come on, have a drink with us!" 

Castiel left the Honeybee Inn the next day, to follow the rabbit back into the desert, nursing a hangover. Actually, he was pretty sure that the rabbit had one too. There was a simple equation that easily explains what had happened to give both him and the rabbit hangovers. The equation goes something like this: 

Soldier meets Soldier + 

Peaceful times + 

A bar = 

Everyone has a hangover the next day, even the rabbit. 

Castiel possibly picked up some good intel, as well. The bee, that is, his friend, the red plaid bee, had a specific designation, though it had no name. Its designation was 564 of the 75th Squadron of the Red Plaid Queen's Royal Air Force. Its companion was 238 of the 83rd Squadron of the Blue Checkered Queen's Royal Air Force. 

For the first time in a long time, Castiel thanked his Father for giving angels eidetic memory. 

The bees were impressed with the importance of Castiel's Hive when he gravely told them his name. His low rank, and his having a name, was apparently what stressed this importance to them. Castiel didn't bother to dissuade them. He had always rather thought that bees were quite important, in their own way. 

Castiel was growing weary again. So was the rabbit. Eventually, the rabbit came to a complete stop, looked up at the angel, and waved a little white flag in the air. He drifted down to land nearby. "I give up," said the rabbit. "Why are you following me?" it whined. 

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I have no directions for what I'm seeking," he responded, seriously. "You are giving me a direction in which to search, and you seem to know where you are going." 

It stared up at him. Up close, it was actually a bit shorter than the angel, but stood nearly as high as his chest. "I suppose that that makes sense," it muttered, almost as though this made no sense at all. "What exactly are you looking for, all the way out here?" 

"The master of this place," Castiel answered. "Or, if at all possible, one called Kushiel." 

"No, no. No, I don't think so," the rabbit grumbled nervously, wringing its paws together. "No, I can't do that. No, no. I don't know this Kushiel, but Malik doesn't see visitors, no, no..." It rocked back to look at him again, shaking its head. "No no, I really can't do that. No, no, no." Castiel almost asked "Why not?" but the white rabbit took off running again, with a litany of "No no, nonono..." trailing behind it. 

The rabbit seemed more difficult to catch up to this time. Its litany was still heard, though, making trailing it rather easy. The angel was surprised, however, when, while his eyes told him that there was just more of the same ahead, his feet told him a different story. He hit the water with a mighty splash. He floundered briefly, knowing that, as an angel, he had never had reason to swim, and tried to figure out how to extricate himself from the water. 

Eventually, Castiel managed to flounder to the embankment, but he couldn't quite gather the strength needed to free himself from the sucking grip of the water's surface. He shivered miserably. It had only been a couple of days, but he was rather certain that he really didn't like Malik's Garden, if it made him feel like this. This was almost like humanity slowly encroaching upon his Grace, and it _itched_ too. He moaned in despondence. This was _awful_. 

~@~

When he wrenched himself back into reality, or the local variation thereof, it was to _something_ picking through his feathers, and talking over his head. "Fledges, these days, don' take care of theyselfs whatso ever... Still, luv, hush hush," the croon was soothing, and, as it suggested, Castiel stilled beneath picking claws, or fingers; whatever they were. "Don' take care of yerselfs and yer bein' in the water... What do yer think yer is? A duck?" 

"Some days," the angel murmured in soft reply, "I'm so silly as to think I'm approaching human." 

"Oh, tehrble, poor quack," the soothing voice clucked sympathetically. "Tehrble, real luv. Tehrble. Humans swim jes fine, liken to the jakes. Or ducks. Poor quack." 

Castiel decided that "quack" was being used as an endearment, and that he shouldn't take offense to it, anymore than he would take offense to Dean calling him a "junkless sissy". Though, from Dean, he doubted that it was intended as anything so much as an instigating insult. "I didn't think that I could swim," he protested, figuring that that was the safest thing to protest at the moment. "I fell." And that was a metaphorical kick in the metaphorical balls, truly. Ironic. 

The voice clucked again. "Silly quack, why din yer take to wing?" 

"It was rather sudden." He winced as pin feathers were rearranged to where they were supposed to be. Some of his feathers had been out of place for longer than since his recent dip into the water. He attempted to turn, to look at the one grooming his wings, only to have his pinions yanked on. 

"Be still, fledge," the voice warned in a sharper tone. Castiel allowed his curiosity to subside. He obviously wasn't going to see who his rescuer/groomer was until they were finished with what they were doing. "Why weren't yer to wing to begin whit?" The voice sounded genuinely curious, and in spite of the previous sharpness, still fairly friendly. 

"I was following something afoot," he explained. "It was difficult to see it, so I was tracing it by sound." 

"Ah, poor quack, I see." The angel winced as the owner of the voice yanked a few more feathers back into place, dislodging a fair amount of encrusted sand. "Poor quack must be lonesome. Wings is all a mess. Is a _pity_ , is." The hands/claws stilled on his wings and moved up to his hair, and for the first time since entering the Garden, Castiel realized that he must still look like Jimmy to an extent. His hair got groomed too. 

"May I move now?" asked the angel. He was rather surprised to be allowed to do so. When he turned about, what he saw surprised him again. The harpy was well groomed for her kind, and almost pretty. A couple of missing teeth were most of what detracted from her visage. "Are you intending to eat me?" he asked thoughtfully. He doubted that she intended to, but the question begged asking. 

She looked amused and folded her wing/arms in a manner that suggested sarcasm. "A fellow humanish bird? Noo, why would I be doin such? Is almost sacrilegious, is." 

"Why did you help me?" he asked. Again, the question begged asking. 

"Yer poor soddin' quack," she said, looking like he was the most entertaining thing since tape, "because half-drownin' sucks sumthin awful, does." She laughed cheerily. "And such a purdy fellow humanish bird, too, though the human cloths is rather detracting. Yer would be more luverly without, methinks." Castiel was suddenly _really_ uncomfortable with the freshly lusty look in her eye. "And such luverly wings yer has." 

He found himself coughing low in his chest. "A-hem. I'm sorry ma'am," he began, hoping that she wasn't thinking what he thought she was thinking, "but my kind are asexual." He felt his face heat up. It was _weird_ , having that problem. He'd seen others do it any number of times. However, he was quite sure that this was his first time blushing. 

She had been thinking what he thought she was thinking. He knew this when she heaved a disappointed sigh. "Tehrble," she sighed, giving him doe eyes. "Tehrble, really. Yer so luverly, is tehrble yer kinnae pass it on." 

He was sure that that was intended to be a compliment. "Thank you? My kind seems to be exempt from the obsession with propagation." He shrugged, still uncomfortable. 

"Tehrble," she mourned, shaking her head. "Be sure yer be wantin' to return to yer chase, then, eh?" 

Castiel couldn't help but feel bad for her, but he was being nothing but honest, and to allow her to think otherwise was inviting trouble. He really didn't want to enter into that kind of trouble. "Yes, I need to return to my chase... unless... Do you know of one called Kushiel?" 

She blinked dolefully at him and shook her head. "That's a powerful name, quack. A very powerful name. Such as don' belong in Malik's Garden, quack. If any as know of this Kushiel, would be Malik, no doubt. But Malik is nae one to speak to, less one is willin' to see more sooth than mos', quack." 

The angel thought this new information over. "Truth," he decided out loud, "is not something I fear." 

The harpy looked as though this was distressing. 

~@~

The harpy led him back to the water, and they were both amused to find that his quarry hadn't moved all that far along. Some ways from the shore, next to a rock, rocked a little boat with an oar lying across it. On the rock next to the boat, his quarry rested, calming itself with a nice hot cup of tea. The rabbit had been more than frightened at the sight of two large winged shapes in the sky and had chucked its tea cup into the air at them before leaping into its little boat and rowing like a demon promised a way out of Hell. 

Castiel thanked the harpy and watched her bank off into the distance before following the tiny speeding boat beneath him. 

It had been a long time since the angel had had to fly for such a long time at once. Hours stretched into a day, and then two and they were still over the watery expanse, the rabbit paddling furiously while Castiel pondered the wiles of the albatross. He also pondered the continuity of this sub-reality of Hell. The designer had to be either utterly mad, as Castiel had heard Kushiel was, or a paranoid genius, which Castiel was beginning to believe was closer to the truth. 

There was a design beneath it all, that Castiel could almost see, a strange sort of logic that bound everything together with some kind of rules that Castiel just didn't know yet. He was growing surer and surer as he went along that this "Malik" _was_ Kushiel. Only an angel of the highest order could hold something like this place together, and impose the bizarre sense of reality on it. 

Castiel could only hope that when he finally reached the "center of Malik's Garden" that Kushiel would be willing to speak to him. 

~@~

A few days later Castiel fell asleep. 

~@~

Castiel came to some time later, floating in the water, on his back. The white rabbit glared down at him. "About time," it said. "You wrecked my boat, you clumsy oaf." 

"My apologies?" he asked, hoarsely. The rabbit sniffed disdainfully, and kept on paddling while standing on his chest. "I'm in the water?" 

"Yes, you bird brain," it grouched. "If it weren't for you, I'd be where I was going by now." It frowned and shifted. "And my feet would be dry. It's really a good thing for those wings. That's the only thing keeping you afloat. Underneath that coat, you're all glow and no substance. Everybody knows that glows don't float." 

Castiel coughed and looked to the side. He spotted several glowing things floating on the water's dark surface. "What about those glows?" His voice sounded like it was going to go out soon; perhaps, never to come back. 

The rabbit glanced to where he was looking. "You dimwit, those aren't glows. They're glimmers. Glimmers float. Glows don't." 

"I see," the angel murmured. It was a lie, and a poor one at that. He just wasn't sure what the difference between a glimmer and a glow was. The rabbit seemed to take his words at face value, though. 

"You could help, you know," it said, jabbing him in the ribs with a foot. 

Castiel suppressed another cough. When he spoke again, his voice wheezed. "I can't swim," he confessed. "I actually have little understanding as to why I'm floating... I suspect that I may be the first of my kind to do so." He wondered how long it had been since he entered the Garden. "How long was I unconscious?" he asked. 

The rabbit seemed unsure. "I don't know. You killed my boat. It could have been a week, maybe more. It's hard to tell day and night in these parts." It moaned unhappily. "I really should be working. The Garden just doesn't _run_ properly without my supervision! This is _terrible_ , terrible indeed. Oh, Malik is going to be so _unhappy_..." 

"Why would Malik be unhappy?" Castiel winced as his head bumped into something. 

"It's just mangroves," the rabbit informed him. "I'm supposed to be running things, you know. Making sure that things happen in their proper time. Like this, I can't _do_ anything, and that hare will have a better time of it this spring, just you wait and see, and my dearie, well, she won't be seeing _me_ now, will she? But Malik, this is His Garden, and I'm the caretaker, you see. You've had me distracted all this time, and I just don't know what to do!" 

Castiel sighed, and then winced again as his head hit something else. 

"Mangroves, my good fellow. Just mangroves," the rabbit said again. 

"Perhaps it would be best to just let me follow you," he told the rabbit. "And there wouldn't be a problem. You'd be getting where you need to go, and I'd get where I need to go." 

"You have a point," the rabbit admitted. "It just goes against the grain, you know, to lead you all the way to the center. Not that I think you'll be able to enter His abode, of course not, but it's still discomfiting, you see. Embarrassing, even, and it's really very awkward besides. And it's _unprofessional_!" 

"Ah, Mr. Rabbit," called a lovely feminine voice from nearby. "I've been meaning to see you!" 

"The nyads," the rabbit informed him. "Pay them no mind." 

"The mangroves have been sinking lately," complained a deeper voice from closer still. "We've sent complaints to the Bureau." 

The rabbit sighed. "I can't see to anything until it's cleared the tape, stout fellow." It adjusted itself and its paddle, and looked down at Castiel. "That one isn't a nyad," it said, helpfully. 

The feminine voice that had been identified as a nyad came closer. "I love your new boat. It has such lovely feathers." 

"It's not a boat," the rabbit replied waspishly. "It's a stupid bird. Maybe a harpy. Anyway, it crashed my boat, so it's replacing it for now." 

Castiel was too tired to complain, or protest the remarkably grave insult. He just floated and wheezed, wincing occasionally when his head came roughly into contact with things. 

"Ah, now. Here's our stop, bird brain," the rabbit applauded. "Finally. Now, if you want to follow me, you'll have to get your soggy feathers out of the water." It hopped off of his chest and apparently waited patiently for Castiel to do just that. 

It took quite a bit of effort to turn over in the water, and when his face went under, he returned vividly into full consciousness, flavored with an edge of panic. Even with the added awareness, it still took precious minutes, perhaps a dozen of them, to wearily drag himself out of the water. All he managed was onto his knees. Castiel wasn't quite sure, but he felt as though he'd never been so worn down. 

The rabbit was being surprisingly patient. Castiel wasn't sure if he could even stand up. His wings felt as though they weighed a full metric ton, apiece. They shuddered on either side of him, mostly on the ground with his hands and knees. This place, Castiel decided, officially sucked. 

It was sad, that after all of that work the harpy did, that his wings were already down to this sad state. He wondered if he should warn the rabbit about what would happen once he managed to stand. "You may want to find shelter," he warned somewhat raucously. He carefully dragged his shaking legs beneath him and pushed himself to his feet. Once he got there, his wings snapped completely open, sending their watery contents into the air, and startling the fauna that had come far too close. 

The rabbit yelped somewhere in the foliage, and Castiel beat his wings in the air, drying them as best as he could in the cool damp shade. "I'm done," he informed the rabbit, once it was fact. He would just have to leave his wings open behind him. 

The rabbit glanced warily out of a bush. "Are you sure you're done?" It sounded as though it had just remembered the fear it had had of Castiel when the angel had been like an eagle above him; like it was the prey and Castiel was the predator. Those certainly weren't a peaceful bird's wings. The pinions were too long and the lines were too sharp. They were beautiful wings, the rabbit admitted to itself, even if seeing them outspread really made it wish to run from their bearer. "I'll be moving onward, then." 

~@~

There was a familiar looking willow in their path, which the rabbit skirted carefully around. When Castiel saw the blood soaked earth and the bones left to rot beneath her fronds, he saw why the weeping willow was familiar. It was the same tree he had spoken to after drinking with the spider. "Ah, there you are," she sighed, and the rabbit stopped, staring at her with horrified fascination. "Not you, sweet thing," she murmured. "I was speaking to the pretty bird." 

The angel reluctantly stepped closer, in spite of the mistaken species, and tilted his head queryingly. "What can I do for you?" he asked politely. 

"It's been bothering me, sweety. I just wanted to know what gave me away." She seemed quite sincere in her desire for self-improvement. 

"Are you sure you want to know?" he began. "It isn't very flattering." Castiel felt as though he should warn her, at least a little. After all, it wasn't her fault that her nature was unsavory; with the exception, of course, of whatever had damned her soul to Hell. The angel steadfastly ignored whatever that reason may be. He could see it, her reason, that is, if he looked. He just didn't want to look. There were already too many disturbing things in this Damned Garden. 

"I can't fix a problem that I don't know is there, now can I?" 

"While your foliage is quite stunning, the..." He studied the refuse that he might properly describe it. "The melting corpses detract from you beauty." And they did. There was nothing like melting corpses to distract one from the greenery. 

"My food?" She seemed surprised. "Now, how can I fix that?" He could tell that she was genuinely concerned, and would gratefully listen to any advice he had to offer. It wasn't a surprise that she might have difficulty disposing of the refuse. She was, after all, a tree. 

So he offered her the best advice that he could. "Find yourself a symbiote," he suggested. "One to clean up after you; that you won't eat." The rabbit agreed silently from a slightly greater distance away. 

The willow grew thoughtful. "If that's what I need to do," she decided, "then that's what I need to do." 

~@~

The rabbit had disappeared down into a hole in the ground, and Castiel had heard it let out a shrill scream. He quickly peered into the hole, which turned out to be the entrance of an oubliette. There was a rag woman at its base. She stared up at him. "Go away," she said. 

"I'm sorry, but I must be following the rabbit," he replied. He didn't see the rabbit in the oubliette, however. "Did you see a white rabbit?" 

"Oh, yes," she rejoined with a grin. "He took a look at me and screamed his wee rabbit head off." She patted at her head. "Is my hair that bad?" she asked. 

Castiel cocked his head. He hated to admit it but "Yes, it is that bad." A small flea shaped like a rabbit ran across the floor near her feet. "Did he do anything after he screamed?" 

"Why yes," she said. "He took one of my brownies." She offered one to Castiel. 

He stared at it dubiously, crawled into the oubliette to follow the rabbit shaped flea. As it neared the wall, he stepped as close to it as he could, and took a bite out of the brownie. It surprised him by not tasting awful. Although, it did taste strange. "Thank you," he said to the rag woman, even as he began to shrink. It tasted mildly like chilies smelled. 

Then he was flea sized, along with the rabbit, and had to run again to catch up. He was already through the tiny door in the wall when she tugged at the animal remains in her hair. "Is it really that bad?" she asked the wall. 

"I've been telling you," the wall responded, "all these years! Please, either cut it off or go find somewhere else to be alone, I don't want to see it for the rest of your existence." 

~@~

There was a long series of abandoned ant tunnels. Once they left these, and were out in the open air again, the rabbit waved to him. It stuck its thumb in its mouth and blew. With a loud popping sound, it returned to a more normal size. Castiel stared at it, then contemplated his own thumb. Well, if it worked for the rabbit... 

Pop! Again he was head and shoulders taller than the rabbit, and the small house in the middle of the clearing was obvious to his now much larger eyes. "Is this..?" he asked the rabbit. 

The rabbit agreed. "Malik's abode. You've got to knock, first." 

Castiel shrugged and took the wooden steps up to the tiny cottage one at a time. The door had a message inscribed above it in ornate script. 

" _Take my hand,  
_

Truth to seek. 

Worthy holds no 

Fear of me."

He took the door by the handle, assuming that that's what the inscription meant, and the door turned entirely into a mirrored surface. 

In the mirror, Castiel saw himself. His illusions, he mused, had already been stripped from him, many times. Kushiel's mirror held no power over him, but to show him what he didn't know. It was more depressing than horrifying. 

Crystalline threads wrapped around his mirror image, its wings were crushed beneath their weight, its eyes were blinded by their layers, and thicker cords stifled its mouth, preventing it from speaking its secrets. Castiel already knew these secrets, obviously. He also knew that the bindings on his mirror image were imposed on him as well. It was painful to look at, he admitted to himself. But he had known better than to think that he knew the whole truth. 

Several shining threads fell from him as he stared at his mirror image. "It was a good try, however," he grumbled. It was a very good try. He had barely been able to see himself through all of the bindings, and that was very worrisome. The white rabbit gasped behind him, and a large, solid hand wrapped around Castiel's. 

"An angel looks into the Mirror of Truth," a husky voice murmured into his ear. The body that belonged to both the hand and the voice had managed to place itself between Castiel's body and his wings. He could feel other, much larger wings pressed against the backs of his, confining him. "And the angel will see the Truth. No angel of these times, of Heaven or Hell can handle the Truth. Angels are the _worst_ of those wrapped within their own illusions. Most will lose their sanity, from knowing the Truth of what they truly are." The body moved closer and the hand at Castiel's wrist tightened painfully. "And yet, here _you_ stand, unchanged." 

There was a threat in that voice. Castiel would have had to have been really stupid not to hear it. He sagged against the angel behind him, in spite of the still painful seizure of his wrist. "Here I stand," he agreed, wearily. "Here I stand..." 

~@~

The white rabbit served tea and biscuits on a lovely tea set in the middle of the clearing in front of the cottage. The tea was spiked, Castiel rather thought, for his benefit. He had been right. Malik _was_ Kushiel. Kushiel also wasn't mad from what Castiel could tell. In fact, he seemed disturbingly lucid in comparison to the near month it had taken for Castiel to reach his abode. The _Garden_ was insane. Kushiel... wasn't? 

He was also very civilized, for being _alone_ for so long, without the company of his brothers. "I still don't understand why you are _here_ ," Kushiel murmured, abyss black eyes narrowed onto Castiel's own. "I don't think I even know you," he began and Castiel interrupted, supplying his name. "Even so. The Castiel I remember was an errand runner. Hardly a second glance to him. Certainly nothing of interest _there_." 

"Time has a manner of changing all things," Castiel replied somnolently. The slight buzz was making him feel a bit better, but it wasn't helping the clarity of his thoughts. 

"Not angels," Kushiel dismissed darkly. "I saw 'Castiel,' I read him. You are not him. I don't know who you are, but you are _not_ that Castiel." 

"Knowledge," Castiel protested. "Back then, not one of us could even fathom the things I know now, the things I've seen. Change can come, Kushiel, even to our kind." He nibbled reluctantly at a biscuit, hoping that would help his head feel more even. "Knowledge is the greatest perpetrator to change. And I," he admitted, "I have come to know too many things." To his surprise, though dry, the biscuit was exquisitely sweet; far sweeter than the strange brownie from earlier, or anything, really, that Castiel had ever eaten. He wasn't sure if he liked it. 

"That _drone_ couldn't have looked into the Mirror of Truth." Kushiel drank his tea seemingly on autopilot. His wings readjusted themselves in a manner which belied their grandness. It reminded Castiel of the discomfort of sitting in this place. His wings didn't just phase through things like they should. "That _drone_ wouldn't even know what the mirror was, upon seeing it, no less." 

"Knowledge more obscure has benefited me more," Castiel remarked. "I enjoy keeping rare knowledge. The things intentionally left unremembered by the Host, I have been thinking of, especially lately." 

"That 'Castiel' likely would have never had access to that knowledge," his host refuted. 

Castiel shook his head. "No, someone as obscure and forgettable as myself is often told things, so that I can be unremembered again, and soon." 

Kushiel looked disgruntled. 

"I suspect that even now those I've queried are remembering what they can of me," he pointed out, gnawing on the biscuit with more enthusiasm than previously. He thought that maybe he _did_ like it. He was also drunker than he should be, he was sure. His head was starting to feel rather funny. "And they'll be remembering all of the things they've told me, just to make me go away. But they won't be able to ask Gabriel," he added, remembering how many times in the distant past he had the archangel speak to him, just to speak to someone. "Gabriel's gone." 

"Where's Gabriel gone?" Kushiel asked sharply. That information had obviously startled him, though he didn't shift from his lounging position. 

"Not Heaven..." and maybe Castiel was starting to feel a bit sleepy again. Yawn. "Not Hell..." He leaned forward onto the tea table, yawning again. "I'll tell you a secret," he confided, as his eyes started to shut involuntarily. "Heaven doesn't yet know what he's done, but I do." Clank. His head fell to rest on the table. 

Kushiel stared down at him. "Not possible," he muttered, and watched the white rabbit waffle nervously behind Castiel. He waved the Garden's caretaker off, and shook his head. "Not possible," he repeated, and for good measure, "It's not." 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Extra: You know what? I'm going to beg again. Also, though I know where I'm going in the end, if anyone wants to offer interesting suggestions? Hey, I might write it. See you next time!
> 
> Next Time: Strange Bedfellows (aka: Castiel Meets People and Things) In which Castiel finishes his business with Kushiel and returns to find that his vessel has been tangling with vampires.


	3. Strange Bedfellows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel returns in the nick of time, and seeks advice again. Meanwhile, Jimmy seems to have gained an admirer.

The Lord of the Garden, known to its denizens as Malik, watched the unconscious angel breathe, soft yet oddly sonorous, for ten minutes before realizing that Castiel was probably going to remain that way for quite some time. He still didn't move, just studied the other. It had been a very long time since he had seen another angel, and he was uncertain as to what this one wanted. There was a twinge within him, one that he couldn't deny having, at least not to himself, a longing; it had been so long since one of his own kind had just sit with him and talk. It left him unsettled. 

Malik didn't care for the feeling. He was _very unsettled_. Allowing himself to feel that way was beneath his dignity; though it wasn't as though he had much choice in the matter. Feelings and choice didn't mesh well that he had noticed. His posture showed nothing of his internal discomfort, however, and soon his groundskeeper returned with more tea. Unlike most of the inhabitants of his garden, the rabbit didn't have to serve him. That was its choice. Malik was a big fan of "Freedom of Choice". It was practically his motto. After all, it was choices that got one sent to Hell, wasn't it? 

A cool smile crossed his lips, even as his eyes continued to try and pierce the other angel's inscrutability. The rabbit's choice... now, Malik didn't really care to remember what it had been, only that it wasn't entirely that soul's fault. The poor creature was a genius, truly, and a mad one, besides, which is why Malik had it given it the job he had. Its punishment had been over long ago, and it remained in his care and service by choice... as did the cat, who was a different sort of creature entirely. 

Malik watched it dissolve from its post on the roof of his home and _knew_ that it had helped to lead the angel here. "Curious," he murmured to himself, just as curious as an angel looking itself in the eye (in Malik's Mirror of Truth, no less) and not even flinching. He could tell that his brother hadn't expected something about the image in the mirror, but whatever it was had merely saddened him. He didn't start screaming, which is really what Malik would expect of any of his brothers these days. 

It was almost disappointing, hearing that calm sigh, and the words. _"It was a good try..."_ Castiel's voice echoed back to him, and Malik gave serious contemplation toward the idea of chucking his tea cup at his unconscious brother's head and throwing a fit. His silly, naïve brother had called him "Kushiel", and that was enough, he thought, to earn the petty punishment. Malik didn't want to be called "Kushiel" anymore. 

Malik sat back in a manner benefiting his name, and wished for something to do with his hands. Holding his tea cup would only keep him distracted momentarily. Studying Castiel, while keeping him occupied, was kind of starting to piss him off. Malik had been _watching_ Heaven. One of Heaven's soldiers shouldn't have even been able to make it to the center of his Garden, much less see Truth without screaming their pretty little thoughtless heads off. 

So, that meant that there was something special about Castiel. The problem with that was that Castiel definitely wanted something from him. _What_ he wanted was a very good question. On a side note, Castiel's wings were rather... blackened, would be a kind way to put it. He would have had to have been in Hell for a long time for his wings to become such a shade; it would take decades, at least, Hell-side. 

Malik's own wings were coal black, with just enough glimmer to them that one could tell that they had once shone vividly. Castiel's wings still shone. It was dull compared to what it once was, if the angel's story was true, but they were still lovely wings. Malik was sure that he would have known if an angel had been in Hell long enough for that to happen to their wings. Such hadn't happened in Earth-side millennia. 

And he still didn't know what Castiel _wanted_. He was tempted to just wake him up and find out. 

He resigned himself to wait. 

~@~

When Castiel reawakened, Kushiel was no longer at the table with him. He looked up and around, and found the other angel seated on the front steps of the tiny house, apparently _knitting_. His brows knotted. Perhaps he had been wrong in his assessment of Kushiel's sanity? Even knitting, Kushiel still carried an odd air of menace, so Castiel decided to ignore the strangeness of the activity and get on with what he had come here for. 

He stood carefully, and Kushiel's silvery eyes were immediately focused on him. "Awake, I see," the other angel hummed in a grave tone. "I have been wondering what exactly it is that you want. You didn't tell me earlier." He continued to knit in a manner that suggested long practice. 

"I wanted to know the truth," Castiel sighed. He didn't step towards Kushiel, merely turned so that he was properly facing the other angel. "I've recently come to realize that I don't know enough, and I needed proof that not all who left Heaven were truly criminal, or insane." He stretched his wings, which had become cramped as he slept. "You were the first to leave Heaven; therefore you were first on my list." Not completely true, but Gabriel and Haniel didn't count, as he wasn't certain he could face either of them yet. 

"Is that so?" Kushiel asked, as though aware of the omission. "Are you disappointed?" 

Castiel cocked his head thoughtfully, and eyed Kushiel. "I think not. My suspicions are being proven. That frees me from some of my doubts." 

"And Gabriel?" Kushiel's hands stilled as he gave Castiel his full attention. 

Perhaps, Castiel contemplated, he ought to quit drinking with strangers. While Kushiel technically wasn't a stranger, he may as well have been. "I'm not sure if I want to speak of that yet," he replied, this time completely honest. "That wound is still a bit raw." His wings flicked down, raising a small amount of dust and startling the rabbit out of wherever he'd been hiding. "Actually, since speaking with you, my plans may have changed somewhat," Castiel admitted. His plans had been practically non-existent up until that point. Now, however... they were more than a little vague as of yet, but should they come into fruition... 

Kushiel interrupted the thought. "How so?" 

"I thought that I might be well advised to seek allies." Castiel was still a simple soldier, underneath it all, and he was aware that as long as he was working alone, he wouldn't be nearly effective enough to stop both Lucifer and Michael. With the help of someone like Kushiel however, things might change. After all, he was just a soldier, and he had his ways of doing things, mostly very straightforward ways of doing things, while Kushiel... was something entirely different. 

Apparently, their thought processes were _too_ dissimilar, because Kushiel, a bare fraction of a second later was invading Castiel's personal space, his almost human features twisted into an angry grimace. Castiel's jaw was gripped and his gaze was forced upwards to meet Kushiel's."And what makes you think that I would ally myself, Castiel?" He leaned down to meet Castiel's eyes, and the position forced the smaller angel to realize why personal space was such an issue with humans. 

If he could, Castiel would have moved. But Kushiel was an archangel, and by nature, he was far stronger than Castiel. "Because I am alone in this," he replied harshly, feeling an obstinate scowl settle on his face. "Since I am alone, Heaven isn't behind me, and I don't wish for it to be. I don't know what your _reason_ for leaving Heaven was, and I doubt it's the same as mine, but I will never know unless I ask you..!" 

Huge black wings lifted behind Kushiel and the tips of his pinions came to rest on the backs of Castiel's wings. The tickle of their presence was almost gentle, but it would take the space of a thought for them to come down crushingly. "I can't trust anything that you _say_ ," Kushiel snarled. "I met you once, twice, so long ago that I know nothing of you, and I certainly don't trust those pansies upstairs. The only way I would trust you is if you commune with me." 

The thought was even more uncomfortable than his current position. Communion wasn't a bad thing, per se, but it was uncomfortably intimate. It was probably the highest level of intimacy two angels were capable of, but if it gave him a chance to have someone, another angel especially, that he could _trust_... Castiel didn't see as he had much choice. No matter how discomfiting it was, he would do it. He took a breath, and Kushiel's fingers relaxed on his jaw, "Alright." 

~@~

The intruder stood silently, almost invisible beneath the expanse of the Master of the Garden's great black wings. The rabbit wasn't really sure what to think of this. It was interesting, good even, that his Master was being willing to be so close to another of his kind, but he was sure that there was more to it than that. 

When they stepped away from each other, both faces were solemn, though Castiel, the intruder's, expression spoke more toward intense discomfort than to anything else. He spoke first, the gravelly pitch of his voice sending a weird thrill down the rabbit's spine. "I'm being called." He took another step back from the Master, head turned, staring into a distance that the rabbit couldn't see. "Do what you wish with that information. I must go now." 

One hand lifted, reaching for the intruder, possibly to catch him, and hold him there, and the Master's mouth was open, as though about to speak, when the other just _disappeared_. It reminded the rabbit of the cat, only it was a lot faster. It was also completely gone. The Master's hand dropped, and he huffed out a sigh then returned to his previous seating and the knitting that he had left there. 

The rabbit wondered if it should go and get tea. Perhaps that was just the thing the Master needed... 

~@~

The small church looked like a miniature disaster area. Pews were over-turned and the floors were strewn with copious amounts of dead demon husk, disintegrated into a fine dust. From the looks of things, Jimmy had been in actual trouble. _'Thank you, yes, I would have called you if I needed a pizza or something, but this came up first.'_

Being able to hear Jimmy's sarcastic complaint was enough of a surprise that it had Castiel blinking as he glanced around at the damage he had done. Returning to his vessel had lit the tiny church with holy light, and he had accidentally busted some of its windows. The weak demons hadn't stood a chance against his light. They were far too entrenched in darkness; therefore they had been unusually susceptible. 

There was a girl screaming behind him, and Jimmy's kindly pointed out that she had been there for several hours already. _'Miss Cordelia Chase,'_ Jimmy's voice supplied Castiel with the girl's name. Jimmy also added a bit more information on what had happened while Castiel was gone. The demons had claimed to be vampires. Castiel was fairly certain that they were not and Jimmy agreed. A true vampire wouldn't have fallen apart into dust at Castiel's mere presence. Also, it seemed that Jimmy had managed to destroy several of them while Castiel was rushing to return. The first one to try to touch his vessel had fallen to dust when it had touched Jimmy, but there had been far too many for him to fight, especially after one realized that as long as they didn't _touch_ him, he couldn't hurt them. 

The girl was still screaming. 

Castiel frowned and turned to her. "Hush. They are gone." She stopped screaming, but she stared at _him_ with fear. 

Her lower lip wobbled. "Wh-who... What are you?! And what did you do to Mr. Novak?!" There were tears building up in her eyes. She also seemed like she might begin screaming again at any given moment. 

_'Smart girl,'_ Jimmy murmured to Castiel, even before the angel had a chance to respond. "Jimmy is fine," he replied, with his usual amount of gruffness. "He had been waiting for me to return." 

She glared at him. "You didn't tell me what you are." Her teeth were bared at him, and Castiel wouldn't have been surprised if she chose to attack. "You aren't Mr. Novak, so you must not be human. Light isn't always good, right?" She looked unsure of that. 

He had to agree. "This is true," he conceded. "As to what I am, I am an angel. Jimmy is my vessel." Jimmy seemed vaguely disgruntled at that. _'She needs to go home,'_ he finally said. _'If we're going to be leaving, she'll be here, alone. I don't think that we should do that to her.'_ Castiel frowned thoughtfully at Jimmy's suggestion. "He seems of the opinion that you must return home," he concluded distractedly. 

His coat was missing, too, he noted, and Jimmy thoughtfully told him where he had left it. Castiel put it on, and the girl, Cordelia, continued to stare worriedly at him. Her eyes grew wide when he approached her. Before she could blink, she was at the front door of her own home, and Castiel was gone, leaving her with nothing but a sense of vertigo. 

~@~

There was a strange sound, kind of feathery, a bit like rustling paper and a faint smell like brimstone and... Jack sniffed. He was sure that it was something herby and faintly familiar that Daniel would be able to identify, and if not him, then Sam could. The only thing he could think was that he wasn't alone, it was really freaking dark, and Daniel would know that smell. He really hoped that it was one of their guys that stood in the dark with him. "Hello?" he asked, all hope and ears. 

"You heard me this time," a gravelly voice noted, and Jack sighed with relief. He didn't really know Castiel, but he was pretty sure that he wasn't a bad guy. "I was going to thank you for your advice," Castiel continued, "but you seem to be rather busy?" It came out sounding like a question. 

Jack snorted. "Busy isn't the word I'd use." He'd rather say that he felt as though he was knee deep in shit city, but he wasn't sure if Castiel would understand the expression. Not that that was an actual expression. It wasn't; at least not so far as Jack knew. "I can't see you, you know," he added conversationally. "And I don't know where the others are, so if you aren't going to help, you'll just be distracting me." 

He wasn't prepared for Castiel to volunteer his assistance. "What do you need?" 

He also wasn't going to push his luck as far as Castiel's assistance went. "Well, finding my team would be nice. So would a little light." Jack's tone was wry, and he couldn't quite stifle a gasp when the lights came on. "Lights", of course, wasn't exactly the right word for it, however. It was more like, "vague glow that came from everywhere at once". "Uh... Thanks." The light lent the chamber an odd quality, and Jack was actually able to see how precisely the stones beneath his feet came together. Such precision usually came with technology, he thought. "Now, we find Sam, Daniel and Teal'c," he mused, staring discontentedly down at the fitted stones. 

When he looked up, Castiel was nowhere in sight. 

"Right-o..." 

~@~

He still hadn't managed to finish exploring his camp de confinement when he heard Teal'c's deep voice murmuring something indistinct sounding outside his visual range. Sam's voice was clearer with its reply. "He said to go this way, and it's not like we were doing any better on our own!" Her voice was quiet, but it carried an aggressively argumentative quality. 

There was a squeak and a thudding sound, and Jack heard Daniel cursing suddenly and creatively. "I'm sure he's just around the corner, guys." 

Then Daniel ran into Jack face first. Daniel started cursing again, and Jack checked himself for a split lip. "Well, it's nice to know you were looking for me," he grunted, and frowned at the metallic taste in his mouth. "Looking so hard that you didn't notice me standing right here." He checked the suspected split with his tongue, noting to himself that it was bleeding pretty good. Had that been Daniel's chin? "I suggest next time to look where you're going," Jack concluded sincerely. 

Sam was looking at the walls with an intent expression. "Colonel? Where's the light coming from?" 

"I don't know," he replied and then shrugged. "It's special Cas-light." As soon as he said it, the chamber was again plunged into darkness. "Well, I guess that means he left." 

~@~

The teenage girl wound the phone cord around her hand, trying to decide if she was going to tell her friends about last night's encounter or not. Sunday morning had dawned crisp and clear, and Cordelia had been lying awake for over an hour before the light came in full from her bedroom window. The cord was making her hand red, and she was still having a hard time coming to a decision. 

Cordelia didn't believe in angels. 

That man had been possessed by something beautiful and bright and terrible, and she didn't know what it was. She barely knew Mr. Novak, but after the few hours they had spent talking, she wanted to think of him as a friend (only a friend, but if given the chance, if he was as nice as he seemed, she might like him more than that). _As a friend,_ Cordelia was worried about him. 

If she did talk to her friends about this, she'd have to leave the whole possession thing out. Cordelia pursed her lips in annoyance. Well, if she couldn't tell them about the "angel", what _could_ she tell them about? She could tell them about the really hot older guy (Mr. Novak) that she had met at the church. A little smile played upon her lips as she remembered their animated discussion. He was perhaps the only adult she knew that hadn't treated her like a kid at all. They talked about the _stock market_ of all things. How much more adult can you get? 

Decision made, and the possession thing pushed from her mind, she lifted the phone back off of the cradle to dial Aura. From there, she could make it into a three-way call with Harmony, too. 

If she was lucky, she would get to see Mr. Novak again. 

~@~

On his own, Castiel had come to the conclusion that avoiding Haniel, human child that she may be, wasn't necessarily the best of ideas. With him on Earth, it was possible, even likely, that she was already hearing angel voices. No one had come down to search for him yet, but he could hear them well enough. It was mostly just a murmur at the moment, highs and lows as various things titillated the collective of the Heavenly Host, but when he had dropped himself down from Heaven, a horrified shout had rung out. _"CASTIEL HAS LEFT,"_ they cried, and it was as though he had torn out their hearts by coming to Earth. 

He knew that he wasn't considered to be Fallen. He hadn't been cast out, and he hadn't truly cast himself out. Jimmy muttered thoughtfully in the background of his thoughts at that, pointing out that it would be rather silly for them to even think to cast him out, because, technically, no matter what he did, he would be following his last order. 

Castiel wasn't sure why, but that bothered him. It bothered him a lot. Jimmy offered an apology for pointing it out, then added that it wasn't like he was particularly happy with the situation either. Seeing Haniel - _'Anna,'_ Jimmy corrected, and he _was_ right - would probably be good for them anyway. 

The situation with Jimmy was bothering him too. He and Jimmy had been sure that Jimmy was _gone_ , and him being kind of separate again was strange. It also made him wonder a bit about the past months. When he had been mindlessly craving bloody meat, was that really him..? 

Jimmy gave the impression of shrugging and told him that it didn't really matter either way. As far as he was concerned everything that had happened between Raphael exploding them and the separation in Sunnydale was _both_ of them. It was close enough to his own thoughts that Castiel had to agree. Of course, he wasn't really sure of the degree of separation they had now, either. Before his first death, Jimmy had been distant enough that his thoughts never encroached upon Castiel's, and after that, until very very recently... 

_'You really shouldn't worry about it so much,'_ Jimmy muttered. _'It's not like it's going to matter. I kinda think that we've been in the process of merging. While you were gone, I kept thinking I was_ you. _It was disconcerting.'_ There was the mental impression of an emphatically nodding head. _'What's going to happen is going to happen regardless. Worrying about it is pointless.'_

Again, Jimmy had a good point. Unfortunately, Castiel was going to worry anyway. He wished he had a way of knowing just how much Jimmy had affected his decisions these past months. Jimmy seemed to doubt much, because Castiel's thought process had been too alien for him to really influence. It still was, or so he stated. He pointed out that Castiel's nature was essentially unchanged. It was Jimmy who had a hard time remembering who he really was. 

_'Anna,'_ Jimmy reminded him. And again Castiel had to agree. That had, after all, been the intention of his current digression. He wondered if Anna would remember him. 

~@~

Her parents had taken her to the park, and the small girl child had thought that it was one her Father's best creations. Everything was wonderfully green and sweet smelling, and she wasn't really paying attention to how her momma and papa were getting further and further away. She wasn't paying attention to that until she saw the angel. 

If she screamed, he would notice her, and his burnt gold wings would maybe encircle her and she would never see her momma and papa again. She gritted her teeth together and fought the tears that were already streaming down her face. She didn't say it anymore, but she just _knew_ her Father had to be angry with her. He had to be so, _so_ very angry with her. A strangled sob escaped her, and the angel looked at her. 

She couldn't help it. Her voice broke out into a painful wail, even as he strode towards her. Papa was a good man, but he wasn't always right, and little Anna _knew_ that angels were not always merciful; especially not with her. They couldn't be merciful to her; because she was a bad, bad, oh so very bad girl. 

The angel knelt before her, and she continued to cry, even harder. His face was familiar, and little Anna knew that she should know this angel. And suddenly she did. This was Castiel. This was the one who had _left_. Her tears slowed, though she still sobbed breathlessly, and she shook her head. "I don't wanna go," she cried softly. "I don't wanna go!" 

"It's okay, Anna," the angel said. "I won't make you go. I just needed to check on you." His eyes were deep and there was nothing cruel about him that she could see. 

"Castiel?" she asked, and snuffled her running nose. "You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't. Why are you here?" 

A gentle smile, something she wouldn't have expected from any angel toward her, crossed his face. "I wanted to make sure that my being here didn't endanger you." He held out a tiny golden feather hanging from a silver chain. "Take it please, to protect yourself and your family. And Anna," he sighed, the smile slipping away, followed by soulful eyes staring right into hers, "don't speak of angels, Anna. Don't repeat anything you hear them say. It may endanger you and yours. So please don't tell anyone about them." 

She continued to snuffle and allowed Castiel to place the chain about her neck. The feather was his, she knew. No, no angel should be showing her any kindness. "But... b-but, Castiel," she said, and the tears started flowing afresh. "What about Father? What about Father, Castiel? Won't he be mad at you?" 

The angel's expression fell. "Anna..." He shook his head. "I have been given a sort of freedom. Father is not angry with you, Anna. I want you to be aware of that." There was obviously more that Castiel did not say, but something made him keep whatever it was inside. "Thank you for listening. Now you should return to your parents." 

~@~

Jack nearly spat out coffee upon entering his office. It had been a week since the mission where he had seen (rather, "heard") Castiel, and he wasn't expecting to see him again so soon. He certainly hadn't expected to see the entity sitting at his desk, playing with his Gameboy; his _dead_ Gameboy; his dead Gameboy that had been buried somewhere deep within his desk. Its innards had been melted, the last Jack had checked. Yet, there it was, beeping and dinging as though there was nothing wrong with it. 

"Did you fix it?" he asked curiously. From the sounds, Castiel was playing Tetris. If he remembered right, Sam had melted that cartridge, along with the rest of the toy's inner workings when she set it too close to unstable alien devices and some drunken experiment of her own. He had been rather fond of that game. 

Castiel looked up from the game, though his hands continued moving on it. "Fix what?" 

Jack wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Uhm. So. Uhm. How are things going for you?" 

Castiel did that weird bird head tilt thing. "I have spoken to... two others. I am attempting to take your advice." He looked down at the game, paused it and sighed, placing it on Jack's desk. "I think I could use a drink, but I don't think I can afford to pay back an entire liquor store again." As though making a joke, he tugged on his pockets. "I don't believe I have any money." He _sounded_ amused. 

It was strange sounding enough that Jack still wasn't sure what to say. "So... Get some? Take a day off?" Then, with gusto, "Get a little R&R, it'll probably be good for you." He set his armload on the desk, and curiously picked up the Gameboy. The scoreboard was maxed out. As usual, when he looked up, Castiel was gone. "...the Hell?" 

Castiel had to be a god, or something. He beat _Tetris_. How is that even possible? He was totally going to go show the rest of his team, and maybe everyone else in Cheyenne Mountain. 

Then he'd report that Castiel had shown up again. 

~@~

The vixen grinned around her drink. Piña Coladas weren't really her thing, but the little umbrella helped to hide the fact that she wasn't really as pretty as say, the girl on the other end of the counter. She was only a vixen on a technicality anyway; the technicality being that she _was a fox_. More accurately, she was a kitsune. 

She was also a Trickster, with a capital "T", just not a very good one. She was far too lazy. She wasn't even very high in her admittedly low clan. Not all foxes were Tricksters, however, and her clan was as stick in the mud as her kind came... Therefore, she was the black sheep of the family, and with only two tails at that. 

She would be the first to admit that she had no class (didn't want any, for that matter), but at least she was more subtle than a two-by-four, unlike the sweet little thing sitting a few spaces away, fingers lighting up a rune at the bottom of his glass just before he tipped it bottoms up. He radiated power, pure and straightforward, and somehow seemed like he wasn't even properly settled into his body. 

He drank with the kind of single-mindedness that the vixen would have expected of a hardcore soldier determinedly trying to forget that his daughter's husband was, obviously, sleeping with his daughter. Of course, he didn't look old enough to have a daughter of the legal age, nor did he really look like someone who had been to war; not physically, anyway. His perfectly blank intensity was a bit much for the bartender, but the man came back and poured another drink for his patron anyway. 

This bar probably regularly saw worse from its _other_ patrons, anyway. The clean cut man in the trench coat didn't seem like a trouble maker. He just had the kind of power rolling off of him that gave a minor kitsune the Heebie-Jeebies. Of course, giving him a second, closer look, she realized that maybe "clean cut" wasn't really the right phrase to describe him. It just didn't mesh with the four o'clock shadow, or the mussy, just out of bed, hair. 

He looked like, the vixen recognized, a good man that was at the end of his rope, not broken, just very, very drained. She found herself feeling kinda bad for him, and edged toward him, trying to think of something that might amuse him. Bringing down the high and mighty was a truly noble occupation, but bringing the down back up, well, that was something she could get behind. 

She sidled up to him with a grin. "Whall, howdy, stranger," she sang in as bad of an accent as she could muster. She was rewarded by his raising his head to look her in the eye. It was fascinating to watch the single eyebrow that lifted with eloquent sarcasm. She tried not to snort, because, well, two could play at that game, and she wasn't in the mood for sarcasm. She wanted something better, fresher, more cheerful; maybe something slapstick. "My name's Kit, wouldshaaaaa... aaaaah!" 

With perfect timing, the vixen slipped off of the bar stool, making sure to "whack" her face on the man's knee on the way down. "Blood" dripped from her mouth as she sat on the floor, moaning in faked shock. There was a tooth on the floor, with a little smear of "blood" on it. It was hers. She opened up her mouth, and poked at the place that the tooth belonged. 

The stranger stared down at her with detached interest as she began to wail. The actual words meant little. All she needed was to make sure that the word "sue" ended up somewhere in her teary rant. Of course, that's what set the bartender off. He honestly thought that she might sue him, so he was careful to make sure that everything he did, from helping her up from the floor, to handing her back her tooth was both gracious and unassuming. 

Then the stranger made her apologies for her, telling the bartender that she would be just fine, she was just a bit drunk, that's all, and she probably wouldn't even miss the tooth. Much to Kit's joy, this only seemed to make the bartender more nervous. She made sure to sob theatrically as she was led out the door. 

Once they were alone, the first thing the man said was, "Where did the tooth come from?" She thought that the question was just an inanity until she saw that he was looking at her curiously. "The blood wasn't real, but the tooth is. Where did it come from?" 

Kit stuffed her finger into the gap next to her incisors. From the incisor to her fang, there was nothing but gum. With her finger still jammed in her mouth, she replied, "Right here." 

"I thought keeping lost body parts was considered a disgusting practice?" There was no condemnation in his tone, just mild confusion. He sniffed lightly before continuing on. "I still don't understand what Tricksters get from their practice." 

"Fun?" she said, shrugging. "The knowledge of a job well done that warms us when there's nothing else to think on, or maybe just... You know what, I don't know. It's different for everyone, yes?" She chased the weird coppery sweet taste from the fake blood around her mouth with her tongue. "I don't really care enough to do it right, it just gets me away from home." 

"I see," he said, blinking once. Kit wasn't sure if he meant it, or if he was just saying it to have a response. 

"No you don't," she shrugged. "But that's alright. What's got you down, stranger? I was hopin' to get a little bit of a laugh. No one appreciates my art anymore." She snuffled for a moment then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Is my face swelling? I think I might be allergic to my props?" Not that Kit would let something like an _allergy_ slow her down. It might be better to use a different brand of fake blood next time, though. Just in case. 

~@~

Several hours later, the kitsune was wondering just why she had asked the bright stranger what was wrong. Every time he skirted the edge of certain topics, she could sense the chains tearing through his energy, choking off the words before they could fully form. Kit shuddered to think what could have cursed such a powerful creature with a geis like that, and Why? Castiel seemed like a pleasant enough bloke. He was a bit odd, she supposed, dour, perhaps, but he seemed like a truly good fellow. 

Shit, but that hurt _her_ to feel those chains tightening on him. _'Damn you, Inari,'_ she swore internally. _'Why'd you make me such a caring person, anyway?'_

Oblivious to Kit's internal distress, Castiel swirled the bright blue liquid in his glass. They were told that it was flavored with orange essence. Kit kind of doubted it, no matter what it smelled like. Give her sake any day. At least that was recognizable in most of its forms. "Strange," he murmured. "Why is it blue, anyway?" It was like he had read her mind (quite possible, actually). He was starting to get that faint flush that said that he may have had a little too much to drink. 

"For a higher being, you sure are a lightweight," Kit muttered, amused. 

He chuckled mutely. "Oh no. I'm enchanting it." He tilted the glass so that she could see the rune that had been etched on the bottom. 

Kit was horrified, even as, in her mind she was thinking, _'So that's what that was for.'_ "Why would you do that?" 

"So that I don't have to have a whole liquor store," he replied. "I learned something on a recent jaunt." Faintly, under his breath, Kit could hear him mutter, "Fake physical bullshit." 

That was... odd. The physical affected everyone who wasn't dead, and even then, sometimes, as far as Kit knew, and she was a minor goddess (technically, extremely minor), so she knew quite a bit compared to the average being. Being a leech gave her an added edge on her knowledge garnering skills, as well. "How was it fake?" she asked dubiously. 

"Hell isn't physical," he shrugged. "Therefore, anything there that seems physical must be fake. However, being there taught me a way to become just as... affected, by certain things as, say, a human." 

"Oh," she replied, feeling slightly stupid. Then, after mentally reviewing what he said, "Wait! What were you doing in Hell?" 

"Looking for someone," he said, sipping at his blue colored liquor. 

Kit grimaced enthusiastically. "Yeah, you know, I know it's usually considered kinda rude to ask, but you know, I'm not the most polite critter on this side of the Meridian..." She took a deep breath, and before she could lose her nerve, asked, "What are you?" 

He tilted his head thoughtfully, in an inhumane gesture reminiscent of a bird, and asked, "What do I seem like?" 

"Not fair," Kit whined, "asking a question in response to a question isn't fair! All I know is you're big and bright and shiny, and you're not a pagan god, are you? You don't seem like... unless you're Apollo or one of his like, but he was supposed to be a different kind of shiny." 

"I am not a pagan god," Castiel confirmed, but didn't clarify further. 

Kit sighed. It was going to be a long day. 

~@~

"And then he said, and then he said, what was it, something about his escutcheon. I don't know, but I just about died, it was so funny." Kit giggled hysterically. Castiel got a lot funner once he was drunk... or maybe she was just a lot easier to amuse when _she_ was. He was smiling faintly now, like he finally got the joke she was telling. "Anyway, I was thinking, I was thinking, you'd like the rock." 

"It's evil," he commented dryly, with that same faint smile. 

"Seemed like the kind of thing a fellow like you would like." She nodded enthusiastically, arranging her fingers around the stone in question as though to showcase it. "Evil, but can't really do anything but radiate its being, or something. I think it's possessed by a demon, but it can't get out?" 

Castiel appeared to give this due consideration and the smile grew slightly. "It is," he agreed. "But what do you do with it?" 

"Can't think of a good reason to exorcise it," she said, grinning. She continued with a shrug, "So I was thinking about leaving it in the men's bathroom at the Saints' Stadium. What do you think?" 

"Seems like it belongs in a Garden," he replied. Something about the way the word came out implied that it was with a capital "G". 

"You think?" Kit asked. She poked the stone with her index finger and giggled at the aggravation that arose from it. Her and Castiel's three day (so far) bender was slowing down if they were getting off track because of a single rock. Then again, she figured that the shiny fellow had needed the break if he let himself be distracted for that long. "What kind of Garden?" She tried to give the word the same inflection that he had. 

"My brother's Garden," was his somewhat ambiguous response. 

"Useless." Kit grunted and stood. It looked as though Castiel was well and distracted. "You don't want to play no more?" She pouted at him. 

He wobbled slightly on his feet and frowned. "I think that I still have things to do," he said reluctantly. 

It heartened Kit to know that he was enjoying himself. "Whaaaall, if you want my opinion," she offered, "you're the kinda guy who needs to schedule yourself fer breaks." 

He seemed to frown a lot more easily than he smiled. Ever since mentioning his brother, Castiel had been frowning thoughtfully. "Yes, perhaps you're right." Then, with a tiny smile, he said, "Thank you for your time, Inari's child." 

It would be several weeks before Kit ran into him again, and Castiel would tell her of the wisdom shown at human parties, where the host would take the guests' car keys. Apparently, drinking and teleporting (if that was, indeed, what Castiel did) was equivalent to humans drinking and driving. 

~@~

Jimmy wasn't all that certain that he liked Sunnydale. For all that the town was located on a Hellmouth, it wasn't like they had great access to fast food. There seemed to be two burger joints in the whole town, and one of them was called the Happy Burger, of all things. The other one sounded just as questionable, which was why Jimmy felt weird even being in it. Doublemeat Palace sounded a little... fishy, but Jimmy was hungry enough that he didn't really care what was in the Doublemeat Medley. 

Cas never did eat, anyway, not after... Not after that run in with Famine. Instead, he drank. Copiously. Thankfully, he took the inebriation and the scent of alcohol with him, wherever he was going. 

There was another problem for Jimmy, though. The only currency in his pockets was newer than the year 2000, and it was only 1995. 

He gave the cash in his wallet a wounded look and hoped desperately for the money to suddenly and randomly change back to older style currency before his eyes. He just about dropped to the floor (an unwise action in a busy restaurant) in shock when it actually did. Suspiciously, he pulled a twenty out and pinched it between his fingers. Not that he knew enough about the security features on money to know how to tell for sure that it was real, but it _looked_ real. 

Frowning, he held it up to the light, looking for the security strip. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or uncomfortable when he saw it. When his stomach gurgled silently, he decided to settle on relieved. 

He had barely begun to turn around when a hand settled on his shoulder. Even as his back stiffened, he told himself not to worry so much. A young female voice greeted him with a quiet, "Is that you, Mr. Novak?" when he turned the rest of the way. It was Miss Cordelia Chase. A relieved smile crossed her face when she looked up at him and, presumably, saw that it wasn't Cas looking down at her. Castiel wasn't the most subtle of creatures at the best of times, so there was no way anyone would mistake either of them for the other. 

"Miss Chase," he greeted her, smiling back. "I'm sorry Castiel scared you, the other day. I feel I should have warned you a little better." 

"I wasn't scared," she told him, puffing up with mild indignation. She deflated rather quickly, and admitted, "I was a bit freaked out, though." 

"Of course," Jimmy agreed. Making a gesture toward the counter, he added, "I was just about to..." 

"Right. Me too." She fidgeted for a moment. "Actually, if you want, if you're here alone, you could eat with us?" He tried not to grimace at that. A man his age, eating lunch with a bunch of teenage girls? That wouldn't look very good. "I wanted them to meet you," she continued. "I gave them a really edited account of the other night, and when I thought I saw you here, I said so, so..." 

"Uhm," he replied. 

"Great! Pick a table that'll fit five!" Then she turned and walked back to her gaggle of friends. 

His mouth snapped closed, and the hand that he had lifted to stop her with dropped back to his side as he sighed. "Right..." 

~@~

Hanging out with a bunch of teenage girls was possibly one of the most socially traumatizing things Jimmy had ever done. He rather wished that he had been able to formulate some kind of excuse to get away. Instead, he got to hear more about shoes than he thought a man his age ever needed to. It was easy to forget that he'd been a teenager in the nineties, but Cordelia's friends were nothing like the girls he had known. 

Jimmy had grown up in the Midwest, in a small town. Sunnydale might be a small town, but it was a Californian town, not too far from Los Angeles. These girls were a lot worldlier than those he had grown up with. The young, very young, Miss Chase had implied that she would love to see him again soon. 

He was grateful for the implication, really he was, but... Even though it was nice, in an "it made him feel human again" sort of way, he couldn't help but remember the look on her face when looking at Cas. Whether or not she would admit it, Castiel had terrified her, and Jimmy was glad that she had left well before Castiel had come back this time. 

Although, on that note, he began wondering what exactly was taking Cas so long. 

Perhaps he would take a walk while waiting. 

~@~

Cordelia pretended an arrogant lack of nerves quite well. Underneath a show of not caring, she was anxious to know what her girlfriends thought of Mr. Novak. It took a while, but eventually, Aura became the first to say something. "What is a blarney stone?" she asked, with a worried frown. It wasn't the question that Cordelia was expecting, but she had to admit, it was a good one. 

"Something to do with talking," she dismissed haughtily. 

"He was quiet," Harmony said, also frowning. "And was that a cell phone? It was tiny!" 

Aphrodesia sighed gently. "If that was a cell phone, it must have been expensive. Think about all the shoes someone with things like that could buy." The other three sighed dreamily, almost in echo of Aphrodesia. "And he was really hot, too, not that I doubted you at all, Cordelia." 

"A bit strange," Harmony pointed out. "He moved strange." 

Cordelia had to admit to herself that Harmony's observation was accurate. As much as she liked Mr. Novak, he did have some strange mannerisms. She thought that she could blame the curious tilt of his head on spending a lot of time possessed, which wasn't something she could tell her friends about. "He obviously has money, though. And he's hot enough to make up for some eccentricity." Again she dismissed her friends' potential concerns, worried instead about other possible road blocks; much, much bigger possible road blocks. 

"He seemed uncomfortable," said Aura, still looking worried. 

"We were crowding him," Cordelia shrugged. She didn't feel guilty about crowding Mr. Novak. While she wasn't the most observant person in the world, she remembered from the last time they had talked that he seemed a little... Well, he was off, but not in the way that Harmony was trying to say. Cordelia was pretty sure that he was starved for human interaction. She didn't think that Castiel, whatever he really was, counted for human interaction, because he wasn't human at all. 

"Why were we crowding him?" Aura asked. 

Harmony laughed. "Isn't it obvious? Because he was hot." Harmony's reasoning was a bit off, but Cordelia decided to go along with it. When she saw Cordelia's approving nod, she continued, "And rich, maybe?" 

In spite of the weird cell phone, Cordelia wasn't so certain that Mr. Novak was rich. He seemed to have had plenty of money in his wallet (which she had only noticed by accident, thank you), but she would have sworn that he was wearing the exact same clothes that he had been wearing the last time she saw him. The trench coat was fashionable, but the suit he wore with it wasn't at all. The material looked cheap, even, at least to Cordelia's keen eyes. "I'll talk to him again," she stated, more to herself than to the other girls. She was looking forward to it. 

~@~

Jack shuffled across his bedroom at an alarmingly slow pace, yawning. If anyone at the SGC had seen him, they would think he was a zombie, or possessed, or something, because, as far as any of them knew, when Jack woke up, Jack _woke_ up. Daniel was the possible exception to the rule, however, as the linguist had spent many nights on Jack's couch. Jack usually was moving a little quicker by the time he reached the couch, though. 

He paused in his bedroom doorway to yawn again, scratched himself in an indecent manner, and continued to shuffle. Instead of heading for the couch, he made a half turn and went toward the bathroom, thinking _'First things first...'_

By the time he stepped out of the bathroom, he was almost fully awake. He even felt confident enough to approach breakfast. 

Imagine his surprise when there was already someone at his breakfast table. Jack shrieked (something he wouldn't be proud of, later) at the intruder. "What are you doing here?!" 

Castiel cast an irritated look in his direction, pressing a glass against his forehead that looked like it had a couple of raw eggs in it, amongst other things. "Must you be so loud?" 

Taking note of the color of the other ingredients in the glass, Jack asked, "Is that what I think it is?" 

"I don't know. Too much effort to check," Castiel replied. "Jimmy said it would help, but I don't know if I believe him." 

"You have a hangover," Jack stated, not sure if he should be amused, or horrified. "I haven't seen you in a week. Were you drinking all that time?" 

"No? I was for a fairly large portion of it, however." Castiel frowned at the glass. "Jimmy doesn't drink. Is a... 'prairie oyster' actually helpful?" 

"Far as I've noticed." Jack shrugged. "But if you don't drink it, it won't help." 

Castiel grimaced at that information then knocked back the nasty concoction like a pro. "How quickly should it help?" 

"Depends on the person." He shook his head and walked over to the table to stare at the... well, the SGC still wasn't sure what Castiel was. His name was in the occasional book, but how likely was it that they had an actual angel visit them? Daniel, even, had found the idea absurd. "Cas, may I ask, just what are you doing here?" The question bore repeating, especially as Castiel hadn't answered the first time. 

"I thought to tell you that I took your advice again." On the bright side of things, Castiel's complexion, which had been remarkably pasty when Jack had entered the kitchen, was returning to a healthy shade. "Jimmy is laughing." 

"I feel like I've asked this before, but... Who is Jimmy?" Jack shuffled over to his fridge to pull out some eggs for himself while keeping an eye on Castiel in case the... being... decided to answer more cryptically than usual. It turned out to be a good call. Castiel just made a rough gesture in response, indicating his entire body, if Jack read it right. "Okay. That tells me a whole lot of nothing." There were six eggs left in the carton. More than enough for two. "Want some?" he asked, lifting the carton. 

A sharply arched eyebrow was the only response. "I suspect that I'm going to bother you for more advice," Castiel said, ignoring the eggs. 

"Really?" he asked. "What in this time?" 

"Humans seem to prefer having a centralized location from which to plan their endeavors," Castiel said, cryptically. Or maybe it wasn't cryptic at all, and Castiel was just asking for his opinion on that. 

"You mean a house or something?" Jack asked, half expecting to go without clarification. 

"If you would," Castiel confirmed. 

"Got a location in mind?" 

"Jimmy seems to like Sunnydale. I'm there often enough that it seems sensible." Jack frowned. Where the hell was Sunnydale? Before he could ask, Castiel said, "California." 

"So what are you going to do, buy a house?" 

"Buy..?" Castiel blinked innocently. "Oh, yes. Buy. I suppose I need money for that." 

"Get a place where you would be comfortable," Jack told him after starting his eggs. "Once you've got the money, of course." 

He half expected Castiel to leave after that, but the... not-an-angel sat at his table for nearly twenty minutes longer, before stating enigmatically that he was "being careful", and that Hell is not a place one wants to visit while inebriated. Then he was gone, and Jack worked up in his head what his report was going to consist of this time. 

Jack mostly wondered if "Hell" was literal or not. "And that," he said to the empty kitchen, "says everything about my life these days." 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, no funny preview this time. ^_^ This one's a little disjointed (I feel that way about most of my writing lately) but you know how it goes.


	4. The Split

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas spends some time introspecting, and an antichrist does them an unasked-for favor. Jimmy finds out Interesting Things; meanwhile, Duckzilla rampages in Canada.

~@~

If anyone bothered to ask Castiel what he did when he wasn't talking to people, they might be surprised at his reply. Standing in a place where there was no actual footing, just outside of the atmosphere, looking down on the jewel of his Father's creation, Castiel thought. He listed various Fallen in his mind, partly for Jimmy's benefit, and tried to determine where he would find them. For his own amusement, he listed them alphabetically. 

First, there was Azazel. Azazel was already off his list of possible angels to attempt communication with, but he still felt like he shouldn't leave him unremembered. The only thing he wanted with that Fallen was to kill him. 

Next was Aziraphale (technically not Fallen, but he had been one of Earth's longest residents), who had been involved in one of Hell's previous attempts to free Lucifer. 

_'???'_ It wasn't an actual question, but Jimmy's interest had Castiel examining that thought. 

_'One of Hell's previous attempts..?'_

_'The question is,'_ Jimmy pointed out, _'was it just Hell, or is that what you were told?'_

**Frustration**. Castiel was stuck doubting everything he had ever been told about anything Apocalypse related (except for what he had learned after the fact). He hated having to doubt his siblings, but had to admit, in the recesses of his own mind, that they were the ones who started this cycle. If it weren't for angels, apocalypses, that is, biblical apocalypses, wouldn't even be on the table. Unfortunately, Castiel had to know, and Aziraphale would be a good source of information. 

He remembered the angel in the dumpy vessel from his search for his Father. Aziraphale had been sympathetic to his plight, but wholly unable to help. _'The bookshop in New York?'_ asked Jimmy. _'I remember this, a little. If we can't find him, who do we look for next?'_

'I would rather not seek out Beijing,' Castiel noted. Aziraphale, if he felt that he could help, would. Beijing was too focused. In response to Jimmy's quiet interest in the subject, Cas added, _'The city you know grew up around that one. He is focused, similarly to how I am focused, but our focuses are not the same as each other's. We are both soldiers, but Beijing is a guardian. We wouldn't understand each other well.'_ That was an understatement, but Castiel didn't need to tell Jimmy as much. His vessel had understood, in a limited, human sort of way. 

_'I see... Next?'_

There were quite a few between one and the next, and Castiel jumped completely away from the alphabetical order thing to the next Fallen he might be willing to speak with. _'Zerachiel,'_ he noted. Zerachiel was nearly as focused on her duties as Beijing; she was so focused, in fact, that the Fall had done nothing to keep her from following her previously designated path. She may have supported Lucifer, but she still appeared regularly at the gates of both Heaven and Hell with her reapers. _'Samael,'_ he added. Samael was a special case. When Lucifer had cast aside his original name, Samael was created, and somehow, during all the fighting, the confused new angel had Fallen along with the previous bearer of his name. _'Or had he?'_ Castiel wondered. 

_'???'_

'I don't see why he would have,' Cas admitted. Although, there had been that thing with Sandalphon... No, he doubted that that had any bearings on Samael's Fall. Jimmy's curiosity was almost unbearable, and Castiel cast about to find something to distract them both. Far down below, New York looked like a blazing beacon. Yes, he would go speak with Aziraphale and find out what happened during the not-Apocalypse that he had been involved in. 

~@~

"You're not going to explode, are you?" the demon asked the pregnant woman as she tried to settle back into a chair. The lump was barely visible yet, and the woman was growing irritated with him. It wasn't his fault that he didn't know what to do with her. The only times he had anything to do with pregnancy was being the _cause_ of the pregnancy, by whispering in the right ear at the right time. After all, temptation was his game. Usually, after that, he didn't have anything to do with the kid until it was _talking_ at least. 

"I'm not going to explode, Crowley," she sighed, scowling when he tried to stuff a pillow behind her back. "I'm only three months along! I don't need to be coddled! Why is it that both you and Adam went crazy around the time I got pregnant?" 

In echo of his previous thoughts, Crowley said, "It's not like I know what to do with a pregnant woman. Adam, either. Small family, you know." 

She blew a lock of fiery red hair away from her nose. "Well, stop treating me like an invalid." 

Crowley wrung his hands together. As far as Adam was concerned, Pepper was his queen, and if anything happened to her on Crowley's watch, the best thing that he could hope for was Adam throwing him to the wolves by removing his protection. He knew better than to mention this to Pepper, though; she'd only get exasperated with him and make him leave the room. "I could go visit Aziraphale?" he said, only it came out as a question. "He moved his shop here to New York, you know." 

"Yes, I know," she responded, rolling her eyes. "Go, visit him, or something. Just get out of my hair." 

It occurred to Crowley that the couple would be happier to spend their honeymoon without his lurking presence, anyway. "Alright," he said, nodding decisively. "I'm going now." Outside, the city smelled better than it had in over a century, and the weather was pleasantly warm. It was like walking out onto a movie set. It was interesting to see just how far an Antichrist's influence was able to spread once he reached adulthood. 

~@~

Jimmy insisted that there was something odd going on in New York. Castiel honestly couldn't tell, but he heeded his vessel's insistence. He understood well enough that he didn't know the human world as well as a human. _'Are you sure that this Aziraphale is in New York?'_

_'He was in 2009,'_ the angel agreed silently. As much as he didn't like the thought of having been lied to even more than he had known, Castiel had to admit that Jimmy was right. The Apocalypse of 2009 was probably not the first one. While he hadn't been involved, of course, he could clearly remember hearing something about the forces of Hell having made an attempt some ten years or so ago (some time in the eighties, if he had the timing right). It was far more likely to have been a mutual attempt, and Aziraphale had been the only angel on Earth at the time. 

Castiel was at a loss as to how to find Aziraphale. When he had been a great distance above New York, he had been able to sense him, in the distance, but now that he was in here, it was like something had thrown a shroud across his senses. That shroud obscured his memory, even, of the location of the Aziraphale's book shop. Just as the angel was getting ready to buckle down and check every single book store in the city, something rocketed out the door of the nearby hotel and came crashing into him. He tumbled to the ground along with the perpetrator, who looked absolutely horrified to see Castiel. 

"Oh, Manchester," the person (a demon? no, not a demon, perhaps a Fallen, but all Castiel could sense on him was the taint of Hell) gasped and started scooting away from the angel, on his butt, in obvious panic. "Please don't kill me, please don't kill me!" 

Castiel blinked from his own position on the ground. Perhaps he should ignore the plea? Not that he wanted to kill the... He blinked again. The man was definitely another angel, not Fallen, yet still inundated with Hell-taint. "I intend you no harm," Castiel said with a puzzled frown. "I'm merely looking for someone. Who are you?" 

The other angel was holding a hand to his chest (like he was human and could have a heart attack), but appeared to calm down some. "Crowley," he said. "I... ah... Is there a reason for an angel not to kill a demon on sight?" 

"What?" he asked, tilting his head in mild confusion. "You are _not_ a demon." 

"Am so!" the other angel insisted indignantly. 

"You are not," Castiel replied with a minute head shake. 

"Am so," Crowley (and wasn't that a coincidence? One of the few demon's Cas was on speaking terms with carried the same name) insisted again, beginning to scowl. 

"You are not." Castiel was growing slightly irritated, and Jimmy's amusement at their argument (which Castiel didn't think was all that funny) only exacerbated it. 

"Am so." 

"You are not." 

"Am so!" 

Castiel very nearly started to growl. "You are not." 

This continued in the very same vein for several minutes before a man's amused voice cut in to the argument. "He thinks he is," the man (strangely charismatic, even to Castiel's blunted senses, and there was an odd glow to him that made Jimmy react like they were being threatened) said, smiling down at them. For some reason, neither of them had bothered to get up from where they had fallen (excepting Crowley's initial scooting away). 

"What's that supposed to mean?" the wannabe demon asked, holding on to his indignation. 

"Well, _Sammy_ ," the man began amusedly, white teeth glinting under the streetlights, and Castiel automatically dissected the name (Sammy, short for Samuel, a derivative of... Aaaahh...), "it doesn't take a demon to live in Hell; much like it doesn't take a human to live on Earth." 

Crowley scowled up at the man. "I Fell," he said, more irritated with the discussion than angry, "for reasons irrelevant. That makes me a demon." 

"If you say so," the man said, shrugging. 

"So that's where you went," Castiel muttered, trying to ignore Jimmy's attempt to niggle more information from him. For some reason, the man was giving him a curious look, ignoring the not-demon Crowley's grouchy protests. 

"Why are there two of you?" the man asked, a faint frown forming on his lips. "No, that's not right. Let me fix that." 

Suddenly Castiel's world turned inside out, and much to his alarm, Jimmy sounded like he was miles away. 

~@~

"I would swear," said the angel's double, from the back seat of Crowley's Bentley, less than half an hour later, "that Freddie Mercury never did anything with such... classical accompaniment. If I didn't know better, I would say that was Bach." 

Crowley sighed sadly. "If anything stays in here for more than a fortnight, it turns into a Best of Queen album," he admitted. "It's a curse, and I'm not sure where I picked it up. Also, you, in the back?" The man? Crowley wasn't sure if he was a man, but he wasn't an angel, not really. Anyway, he sat up in the back to look Crowley in the eye via the rear-view mirror. "Don't you go believing this angel that I'm an angel, alright?" 

"Alright. I don't need Castiel to tell me anything. There's nothing wrong with my senses." Once offending Crowley, he dropped back in his seat with a strange smile on his face. "My name is Jimmy, by the way, since you seem afraid to ask for my name." 

"Jimmy isn't a name;" Crowley sniffed, "it's a horrible derivative that parents saddle their children with." 

"James sounds pretentious," he shrugged. 

"I'll call you James," Crowley began, but was interrupted. 

"You call me James, I'll call you Sama..." 

Crowley interrupted back. "Jimmy. What a fine name, that. Very earthy. It just positively screams 'No imagination!'" 

Jimmy chuckled, "Thanks, I try." He sat up again, the beige trench coat that both he and Castiel now wore falling around his elbows. "When do you think Cas is coming back?" 

"No idea." On that note, Crowley's fingers gripped the steering wheel more tightly. "Say, Jimmy... Do you have any idea what's going to happen to me? Not wanting to sound selfish, and all, but I think I'm justifiably worried about this. At least with Adam, I was sure of my... welcome, I suppose you could say. I'm not so sure of this Castiel fellow. Never met him, you know. Not that I met many angels, and even in Hell, most angels didn't survive long. Something ate a lot of us." 

Jimmy's bright blue eyes met his in the rear-view mirror again. "What?" 

"Well, you know, quite a few of us Fell that first time, right? There aren't too many angels left in Hell, though. I heard that Kushiel figured out the problem and contained it, somehow." Crowley didn't say that he had never actually found out what had been eating his Fallen brethren. It was obvious without his admitting it. "But I'm more wondering what Castiel is going to do with me, because it's not like I can go to Hell like this." 

"He'll probably give you a few rules to follow then leave you to mind your own business," Jimmy said, shrugging. 

Crowley digested that for a moment. "Right... He's an Independent, isn't he?" He could see Jimmy's frown, even though the man didn't actually look up at him this time. "His lot always did do better without someone looking over their shoulders all the time." 

"Cas was thinking about that, once," Jimmy said. "I'm not sure I understand what it means." Crowley didn't have an answer, and it was just as well, as the angel in question returned to the car. 

"There was a line," Castiel said, possibly in explanation of the time it took, or possibly as a mere statement of fact. 

"There often are," Jimmy replied, confirming the second possibility. He held out his hand, and the angel handed him a small bundle of Slim Jims. "Ah, thank you, Cas. It's like you knew exactly what I wanted." The angel arched an eyebrow at Crowley and opened a fifth of Jim Bean. "Yeck, didn't you get enough of that last time?" 

"After today, I thought I should try again," Castiel shrugged, tossing back virtually a third of the bottle in one long gulp. 

Crowley started up the car, bemused at the juxtaposition he was witnessing. Shouldn't it have been the angel telling the human not to drink? He glanced back at Jimmy, and half of the Slim Jims (the small bundle had been more like a large handful, nearly a dozen packages) were already gone from their wrappers. These two sure could shame a demon of gluttony, he mused, as Jimmy made pleased noises around yet another stick and Castiel worked on polishing off the rest of the bottle. 

~@~

Jimmy not being in Castiel's head with him had felt rather strange. His grace quivered around the pieces of Jimmy that seemed to have been left behind. If he looked too closely, he could see a significant portion of his grace still wrapped throughout his vessel's (not actually his vessel, anymore, now was he?) soul. To be fair, Jimmy looked as at a loss as Castiel felt. And Samael, or Crowley as he preferred to be called, wasn't helping things. Oh, he was trying, but it seemed to be one of those things that one couldn't expect him to be capable with. 

There was also the problem of wrapping his mind around the reason that Crowley had been left in his care. Surely an antichrist, as Adam had turned out to be, was far more capable of keeping Crowley safe from the forces of Hell. An antichrist... It was no wonder that Jimmy had been so riled up at the man's presence; strange, yes, but no wonder. 

"This one," Castiel said, and the Bentley whipped into the driveway of one of Sunnydale's many mansions. Jimmy made a noise of complaint in the backseat, muttering something about whiplash and how cars nearly a hundred years old shouldn't move like that. Paying only the slightest amount of attention to Jimmy's words, Castiel got out of the car and stared at the building. It was older than the car, but unlike the car, it actually looked its age. It had been abandoned for quite some time. "How do I own it?" 

Crowley's distaste was obvious, but he replied quickly, "You buy it." 

Castiel sighed, and Jimmy chuckled, pointing out, "We don't have viable identities, Crowley. It's a thing." 

The look on the other angel's face turned thoughtful. "I have assets," he replied. "I can procure it for you, as well as identities. I'll want something in return, of course." Crowley seemed to enjoy pretending that he was a demon, so the attempt at a bargain made perfect sense. 

"What do you want?" Castiel asked, genuinely curious. 

"I want Aziraphale here," he stated flatly. He said it in a way that suggested that he didn't think Cas would do it; however... 

It was just another problem for him to turn over in his mind. "As long as that antichrist is in New York, I can't contact him directly," he said, "but I do know where Aziraphale is, and can offer him a place here, should he desire it." Castiel had liked Aziraphale and the thought of him being constantly available to converse with was a pleasant one. "You are friends with Aziraphale?" he asked. 

Crowley blinked at him, drawing attention to his strange, yellow, snake-like eyes, even hidden as they were behind dark sunglasses. Cautiously, the other angel said, "Yes..." 

"I don't suppose you would know what happened with this last Apocalypse, would you?" Because he was watching, Castiel saw the way Crowley tensed up. The other angel knew something, certainly. "Were you there?" he asked, curiosity piqued again. While the other didn't answer, Jimmy watched the exchange interestedly. "Please, satisfy my curiosity." 

"You're with Heaven," Crowley eventually replied, shaking his head, eyes guarded. 

"I am not," Castiel said. 

"Maybe later," he finally replied. "You want me to purchase this ugly place? It's a fixer-uper, just so you know." 

"Yes." Castiel did want the mansion. One way or another, he was going to have it. He didn't actually need Crowley's help; it was preferable, but he didn't actually need it. 

~@~

Later that night, Castiel heard a loud, human prayer for help, and wondered why he had heard it. _'Oh please god, please, help me, please!'_ The tear filled voice was familiar, in a way, and it took Castiel less than a second to realize who it was. It was that boy that had run into him on his first visit to Sunnydale, the boy with the bicycle. Deciding what to do about the plea, Castiel assessed the boy's situation. 

Yes, he did need help, and Dean would have been pissed if Castiel had chosen to do anything but help the boy. That made it an easy choice. 

All the demons in the dank cavern were already dust when he turned to check on the boy. 

~@~

A block away, on the opposite side of the road from where she lived, Cordelia observed two very nice cars in a driveway. Considering the neighborhood in which she lived, that shouldn't have been such a surprise, except that the mansion they were parked in front of had been abandoned for as long as she could remember. One of the cars was a classic, wine red Jaguar coup, and Cordelia had no idea what year it was, but it was a beautiful car. The other car was much older looking, shiny black and to her eyes, resembled some of the nicer cars in silent films. She had no idea what it was, but was very aware that it would be an extremely expensive car today. 

It was unlikely that even her dad would be able to afford a car like that. 

The only reason that she approached the house was out of curiosity. In any case, the owners of the cars might become her neighbors, and they might have kids her age! At first, she almost didn't recognize Mr. Novak standing in between the two cars, talking to a man with slicked back black hair, wearing all black, but doing it _right_. He was a _very_ good looking man, even standing next to Mr. Novak, who, now that he was wearing something other than that cheap suit, looked even better. 

Next to the expensive black slacks, black silk shirt, fine silver tie and classy sunglasses, Mr. Novak was a veritable fount of color. Instead of the cheap, white cotton button-down he had worn before, he had a burgundy colored silk shirt, and instead of the cheap blue wool suit, he wore beige and white pinstriped slacks that would match his trench coat if he had been wearing it, a cream colored tie and waistcoat that matched the pants. He looked _classy_. Cordelia was impressed. 

Disappointingly, the two men seemed to be engaged in a very serious conversation, so she wasn't sure if she wanted to interrupt. She had just come to the decision to walk away and try again at a later time when the man in black indicated her presence to Mr. Novak. He looked pleasantly surprised. "Miss Chase, it's good to see you again!" 

Looking him up and down, Cordelia smiled and said, "It's good to see you wearing something else." 

The other man laughed brightly at her words. "I had to rescue him from a Ross. Don't even start to think that he picked that himself! He rightly can't be trusted to dress himself." Mr. Novak looked offended at that. "It's nice to meet you, Miss Chase; I'm Anthony J. Crowley, the butler." If anything, Mr. Novak looked even more offended. 

"You are not a butler," he said stiffly, and Cordelia stifled a giggle. "You are the least likely person I've ever met to butle anything, Sama..." 

Mr. Crowley interrupted, "Ooh, look at the time! I had better get back inside and butle my butt off!" Mr. Crowley then hustled toward the house. 

"It's a novel experience," Mr. Novak stated with an amused smirk, "having blackmail that doesn't lose its influence." 

"If he's the one who picked your clothes, I'd forgive quite a few trespasses," Cordelia said, smiling. "It looks good." 

He gave an uncomfortable cough, and leaned up against the wine colored car. "Yes well, you know, I've never really been a clothes horse. What brings you here, Miss Chase?" 

"I saw cars, and wondered who my new neighbors were going to be." She pointed at her house, just down the street. "See? That's my house." 

"It's a big house." He glanced back at the mansion behind him. "Interesting coincidence, isn't it? I don't really like the place, personally." He fidgeted for a moment, looking down at his hands. "Crowley thinks that it needs some work, but Cas went through and... took my suggestions." Here, Mr. Novak stopped and sighed, placing a hand on his forehead as though whatever Castiel had done pained him. "He's not very subtle about anything. I barely said a word, and things were done, and Crowley seems to want to add a personal touch to every little thing." 

"It almost sounded like he wanted to play butler," Cordelia murmured. She figured, for Mr. Crowley, it would certainly be a game. 

Mr. Novak chuckled and shook his head. "A place this big deserves a butler. I just think it's too big. Let Crowley play at being the butler if that's what he wants in his shriveled little heart. In the meantime, I'll try to figure out what to do with all the extra space." 

"Actually, Mr. Novak... I was wondering, where is Castiel?" She, like Mr. Novak, seemed to have difficulty not fidgeting. 

"In Colorado, I think," he replied. "Or something. To tell the truth, he could be anywhere. Ah, and before I forget: He can't possess me anymore." 

That was a relief. "Oh, good. I thought... Are you going to stay in Sunnydale?" she asked, letting a frown cross her face. As much as she really didn't want to, there was someone that she thought she should introduce Mr. Novak to. He nodded in reply, giving her his full attention. "Okay. There's this girl at school, she's a... You know what? This sounds a little stupid, but, she's supposed to be this vampire slayer, and it's supposed to be a big deal, and I was wondering if it was legit." 

"Vampire slayer?" he asked dubiously. "That's not a job description I've ever heard of... How would you apply for something like that?" Then he shook his head sharply. "No, that isn't important..!" 

"You know," Cordelia replied, "I was wondering the same thing!" He just stared. "Anyway, should I think, if you haven't heard of it, that it _isn't_ legit? Because, if it isn't, then she got super-strength from somewhere, like a radioactive spider or something..." 

"Way to out yourself as a nerd," he said, smiling slightly. 

What did she... "Shit." She sighed and shook her head. "I don't think it matters. It's not like you talk much when cornered by a bunch of girls." 

"I found that whole ordeal to be incredibly awkward," he told her. 

Cordelia shook her head again, amused. "I know." He gaped slightly, hiding the response almost as soon as he had done it. "You're cute when you're awkward," she informed him. Returning back to her initial problem, she continued, "I was wondering if you would be able to tell me what was up with her, you know, if you met her." 

He shook his head slightly. "Not much with the ESP thing. I don't doubt that I would be able to tell that there was _something_ going on; I just doubt that I would be able to tell you what. I have the senses, due to the whole angelic possession thing; I just don't know how to read them." 

"Oh." Cordelia pursed her lips. "If it's too confusing, would you be able to ask Castiel?" 

His expression cleared, and the faint smile that had been fading came back. "Yes, I would. When would be a good time?" 

"I'm sure they'll be at the Bronze tonight," she said, deviously telling herself that she could easily make this look like a date. "You're a little over-dressed for the Bronze though... I'm not sure if anyone would notice." 

He looked amused. "It isn't one of those tee-shirts-and-torn-jeans clubs, is it?" 

Cordelia grimaced. "Close enough, actually, but it's the only club we have. What you're wearing is too close to white. If anyone spills something, you'll never be able to wear it again. I suggest darker colors." 

"Alright," he said, still amused. "Since you and Crowley seem to be in agreement about my lack of taste, could you be more specific?" 

"Tell him," she suggested. "He seems to have good taste. Just tell him that it's a casual club, and he should get the picture." Cordelia eyed the car that he still leaned against. "Is it yours?" He nodded, smiling, so she said, "I'll just come back in an hour, and I can give you directions then." 

~@~

Cordelia had barely met Crowley (after finding out that the man was British, she struck the Mr. from his name, deeming it unimportant), but she seriously wanted to kiss him. He never did say what it was Mr. Novak (she needed to call him Jimmy, because this was going to look awkward if she kept referring to him by Mr. anything) was trying to buy from Ross, but she could imagine: cheap jeans and packaged tee-shirts. He seemed like the sort, especially after what he had said before about not being a clothes horse. 

Crowley had impeccable taste. He might tease Jimmy (and Jimmy gave back as good as he got), as she had found from the short interaction that she had actually observed, but he could definitely pick the right clothes for the man. Dark grey slacks and a sapphire blue silk shirt; there was no tie this time, but he had his trench coat with him, thrown casually over one arm. She almost felt bad for him, but, as she had told him before, he was cute when he was awkward. He shifted uncomfortably, casting nervous looks toward the doors. "This has never really been my kind of place." 

"They have food," she told him, and pointed him toward the bar. "I'll go find them. Meanwhile, try not to accidentally touch any vampires where people can see you." She left him then, to seek out Buffy and her Slayerettes. It shouldn't have been a surprise when the easiest to spot was Xander Harris, dressed in a truly hideous Hawaiian shirt. Grimacing at the very idea of talking to him, she forced herself to approach. "Is Buffy here?" She yelled, hoping that she wouldn't have to repeat herself. 

He stilled and looked at her. "What?" he called back. 

Rolling her eyes, Cordelia yelled again, louder, "Is Buffy here?" 

Xander made a face then waved his hand near his ear. "What!?" 

Letting the frustration show on her face, she reached out, snagged his shirt and pulled him down to yell directly into his ear, " _Is Buffy here?!_ " He jerked away with a pained sound that she could barely hear over the noise of the crowd. "Well?!" She stomped her foot. 

"Holy Jesus," he snapped, rubbing his ear. "Yes, she is, alright, I'll take you to her. Hold your freaking horses!" He went less than five feet, and Buffy was there, sitting with Willow, Jesse and... Angel. Angel was a bit of a surprise: He had seemed too cool to be hanging with these bozos, but to each his own, Cordelia supposed. 

She followed him, unsure of what else to do. Ignoring everyone else, including Angel (whose name she felt to be slightly ironic), she focused on Buffy. "I brought someone here who knows things, and I wanted you to meet him," she said, perfectly serious. 

"Who 'knows' things?" Buffy asked, frowning at her. "That's a phrase that inspires confidence. Why do you want me to meet him?" 

"Because when I met him, he turned several vampires to ash just by touching them," Cordelia replied. She didn't miss the apprehension on Angel's face at her words; those words were the second reason that she wanted the two to meet; Angel's reaction, on the other hand, was a surprise. The first reason was exactly what she had said to Jimmy. "He's a good guy, and I think, if he knew a little more about the situation here, he would want to help." 

"Just by... Really?" Buffy's eyes were wide, and it was totally obvious that she missed the thing with Angel. The only other person that seemed to have noticed was Xander, and Cordelia just wasn't touching that. 

"Yeah, I sent him over to the bar, so come on." When they got to him, Jimmy was prodding a half-melted pastry on a paper plate across the counter with a plastic spork. "What is that?" Cordelia asked because she honestly couldn't tell. The spork was only touching the pastry, but it was the plate that was moving. Also, Jimmy was dressed too nicely to be so much as touching a spork. Where was the justice in the universe? 

"It was purported to be a cinnamon bun," he replied, turning to them. The second his eyes landed on Angel, an unhealthy shade of green rose in his face, and he turned quickly away, squeaking slightly. "You're cursed," he said, refusing to look at him. "In a way that's oh, wow, nauseating." 

While Cordelia blinked in surprise, and Buffy went forgotten, Angel murmured, "Yes?" 

Still turned away, Jimmy stated, "You're like a metaphysical pretzel. Miss Chase, is this the vampire slayer you were mentioning?" 

"Uhm, no. The vampire slayer would be the blonde girl. I'm sure I indicated 'female,' earlier," Cordelia pouted. 

"I'm not looking close enough to tell," he said. In a move that made sure that Angel remained out of his sight, he turned to observe the rest of the party. Again skipping Buffy, he exclaimed in mild surprise, "Jesse, is that you?" 

The boy jerked in response. "Who, no, how do you know me?" 

Jimmy smiled at him in a friendly manner. "You met Castiel, right?" 

Jesse paled. "How do you know Castiel?" 

Cordelia didn't give Jimmy a chance to answer, instead repeating Jesse's question - at Jesse. "How do you know him?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips. 

Jimmy waved her down (all the while making sure that his back was to Angel). "Cas rescued him," he said. 

"When was that?" she asked archly. 

"Within the past few days?" He shrugged. "Interesting group you dragged over here. The blonde is a vampire slayer?" Jimmy finally actually looked at Buffy, and seemed to find her more confusing than anything else. "There's something demonic there. I don't know. Cas would be able to say more. The rest of you... Well, we've got a vessel, and a... demi-goddess and a..." He looked at Xander and shook his head. "You, I hope I'm mistaking what I'm seeing, because if not... that's just not so good." 

~@~

An hour later, Jimmy was still trying to tell the abomination not to talk, or move or do anything, because every time it did, it made him queasy. Like Cordelia, he found Angel's name to be ironic. Unlike Cordelia, he couldn't enjoy the irony, which he also found ironic. "I suspect Cas would be able to sort you out," he told the man-shaped-demonic-mess. "Fix that curse, somehow." 

And that's how they ended up behind the Bronze, Jimmy dialing Castiel's cell phone (everything they had on them had been duplicated, somehow, when Adam had split them, and somehow, no, their phone numbers were different, and Jimmy had to blame that one on Adam as well) to ask if he wanted to try to fix Angel. "Allow me to look, first," Castiel said, only a foot away. If Jimmy hadn't been his vessel for so long, he might have succumbed to the same shock and horror that seemed to suffuse the rest of the group. "What an interesting group," the angel commented, in his quietly gruff manner. He stared momentarily at the boy in the ugly Hawaiian shirt then turned to the abomination, like that's what he had been planning all along. 

"I thought you might not like to leave that alone," Jimmy said, stepping away. The other boy, Jesse, his eyes darted back and forth between Cas and Jimmy like he was only just recognizing the similarities in their appearance (more like, how they looked exactly the same, and at the same time, completely different; this one, Jimmy blamed on the way they carried themselves, and their attitudes). 

Castiel just stood, preternaturally still, head tilted in that inhuman manner of his, as he studied Angel from only a foot away. The creature had been leery of Jimmy's idea, but unable to stand up to the combination of the others' "what can it hurt?" attitudes. "This is a tangled mess," Cas murmured, "and it shouldn't have happened to begin with. Be still," the words were an order, "and accept a second chance." With that short warning, the angel's palm was on the man-demon's forehead. 

Unexpectedly, Angel didn't fall to dust at Castiel's touch. Instead, his eyes rolled back in his head, and it looked as though the only thing holding him up was Castiel's hand on his face. After a moment, Cas removed his hand, and Angel tumbled to the ground, and Jimmy was able to actually look at him. Angel was an attractive looking man (completely human, now, if Jimmy read it right); just looking at him, he might have been mistaken for an actor. "Huh," Jimmy muttered. 

"Be in good health," Castiel said, like a benediction. At Jimmy's arched eyebrow (which Castiel rightly read as "Really? Channeling them again, are we?"), he added, mildly amused, "My apologies." His eyes (which seemed brighter than Jimmy's ever had in the mirror) trailed again to the boy in the Hawaiian shirt. "I must begin searching for Gabriel, I see." 

There went Jimmy's hopes that the boy wasn't going to match up with his first impression. "Gabriel? I thought he was supposed to... you know..." _'kill all the nephilim,'_ he finished silently. Surely the archangel wasn't going to be creating more after something like that, right? 

The angel shrugged. "That was a long time ago," he acknowledged. "We'll talk later." And then Cas was gone. 

As though Castiel's exit was her cue, the blonde girl started freaking out. "What did he do to Angel?!" 

"I don't know. I think he's human now, if that makes you feel any better." All of a sudden, Jimmy wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep, and hide for days. There was a vague suspicion that even if he went home immediately, he wouldn't get his way. 

"What do you mean, now?" asked the blonde. Jesse and the other girl, the demi-goddess, looked worried, whereas the nephilim looked vindicated. Cordelia, for some reason, chose to display the same maturity that had had them talking for hours when they had met, and remained silent but watchful. 

"He wasn't before, is what I mean," he sighed. "Now he is. Look, I've had a... complicated day, and I think it's high time I go home and bury myself under a rock and hope it isn't alive." Jimmy didn't mean that to be funny, but the nephilim and Jesse both snickered, and shortly, the demi-goddess joined them. "Hmm. Funny. I hope you remember being so cruel when you're my age and someone else is doing it to you. On the bright side, he" and Jimmy indicated Angel "is no longer making me sick." 

"What's that got to do with us?" asked the nephilim. 

"Me, not being sick on you," Jimmy replied, perfectly serious. He had been on the verge of throwing up since meeting Angel, and now that the nausea was gone, felt ten times better than he had. It didn't take away the urge to crawl into a hole to hide for the rest of his life, though. 

"What was with the weird look, anyway?" asked the nephilim, and Jimmy shrugged, turning to walk away. 

Cordelia was walking right next to him well before he reached his car. "So, that was unexpected, right?" 

"Mmhmm," he agreed. "I think, if I had Cas' angel teleporting powers, I would be using them right now... except, I think it would be rude to leave you behind, and I don't want to ditch my car." 

She snorted in response. "I still don't know what to think of him." 

"No?" Jimmy, being the polite gentleman that he was, held open the passenger side door for her before going to the driver's side to get in. "You know, that awful burger place is probably still open?" 

That got an actual laugh. 

~@~

Gabriel weighed heavily on Castiel's mind as he borrowed the SGC's computers. Dean would have been shocked that he even knew how to use them, and Sam would have been just as surprised, just quieter about it. They didn't seem to realize that he learned all this from them. After all, what did an angel need with human technology? But finding Gabriel wasn't something that was going to be easy with his angelic senses, and he wasn't going to let himself dwell on how Gabriel had suddenly become a priority. 

Sam's search algorithms for hunting down the so-called Trickster weren't that difficult to figure out. While he hadn't been there during the initial search, Sam had never guarded his computer against Cas; he guarded it against Dean, because of Dean's love of harmful things, and the fact that this tended to leave the computer not working properly, or in some cases, literally melting down. Castiel smiled, allowing the memory of that time to replay in his mind's eye. 

_"Dean!" Sam roared, bursting into the hotel room, clutching the computer in his hand. Castiel eyed the smoke lifting from it, wondered if it was actually melting, because he couldn't sense it like that anymore. "I swear to God, I know you did this!!"_

Dean's eyes, that same earthy green that they had been, even in Hell, lit up, and Castiel could tell that he was trying not to grin. "I didn't do it, Irene did." A tiny smirk, completely unintended, which was rare for Dean these days, twisted his lips. "And she loved it, Sammy. You have no idea." 

"You downloaded the Irene Demova virus?" Sam asked with award-winning patience. 

"No, I looked at pictures of Irene Demova, that's all. Then the computer started smoking, so I shut the lid." 

Sam, Castiel noted, did a good impression of a man going into cardiac arrest. Good enough that he was worried about it for all of two seconds, until Sam got enough air in his lungs to begin shrieking at Dean again. 

Still smiling, Castiel noted that Dean was the perfect example of what not to do with a computer. His search results narrowed in to Ottawa, Canada, before he was interrupted at his self-appointed task. It was Sam, but not the Sam of his memories. Jack called her Major Carter, but she thought of herself as Sam. She just sat down next to him, fully aware that she wasn't going to be able to stop his computer usage by force. 

"I hope you realize that this is bad for us, that we can't keep our computers secure from you," she said, quietly chiding him. 

"Is this one of those, 'ask first' situations?" he asked, allowing the smile that had still been present to slip away into an attentive frown. 

"Yes," she replied. "It really doesn't look good on us, that you're already in here, using them, and have been for..." 

"Twenty-five minutes," he supplied. "If it would make you feel better, I could go and use NID's computers. They should have similar access." 

"Why do you need to use them, anyway?" she asked, her eyes, blue like Jimmy's, darting to the screen. "And what's in Ottawa?" 

"Possibly, my brother," Castiel replied. "This looks like his work." He indicated a grainy photograph of a wooden baby that looked strangely alive. "Jimmy saw a movie about this once." He could only remember sporadic details about Evil Dead, but it was enough to say that the tree _could_ have impregnated the woman in the movie; movies are unrealistic that way. 

Sam looked as though she had bitten into a lemon and found it not to her taste. "Okay. Why would your brother do that?" She indicated the picture. 

Castiel tipped his head back, thinking. "I have no idea," he admitted. "But he does do it, so I must assume he has a reason, mustn't I?" They sat in silence for a long moment before either of them spoke again. 

"Is he anything like you?" she asked dryly. "Because, I can tell you, we can't figure you out at all." 

"I'm relatively simple," Castiel replied. "My brother, unlike me, actually has a sense of humor, I'm told." 

She frowned at the picture. "That... Is that funny?" 

"D..." Dean's name was choked off before it could fully come out. " _Someone_ would have found it amusing. What humor I have... I don't get it. Perhaps Jack would be amused at the idea of karmatic punishment that should be in Weekly World News." 

"The punishment fits the crime?" she asked rhetorically. "What kind of punishment is this?" She tapped the screen. 

"I have no idea," Castiel repeated. "Next time, I will use NID's computers. My apologies for inconveniencing the SGC... after all, I rather like you." With a single flap of his wings, he was off to Ottawa, Canada. 

~@~

More often than not, Gabriel thought of himself as Loki. It seemed to help suppress his true nature. Suppressing his true nature was possibly the only way he could ever keep hiding from his true family. So he suppressed his nature and folded it until it looked like that of a pagan god. Lately, no one had used his name, either of his names, actually, when addressing him. It almost made him sad, except for where it didn't. 

Because, yeah, archangel, and did he actually _need_ to have the insignificant mortals, running around on this little mud-ball like the rats they were, to venerate him to stoke his ego? No, he didn't, he was aware, perfectly aware of just what he was, and that was bigger than them. 

It had been so long since someone had used his real name, so he almost missed it, in between one moment of Duckzilla's rampage and the next, because it was so damned quiet. "Gabriel." A small voice; gravelly like the speaker didn't know how to use it right; confident like it had already withstood Gabriel at his worst, and knew that it could weather anything he could throw at it. 

His brother, for that was the nature of the being speaking to him, wore a human vessel, but he was alone in that body. On the human level, Gabriel would say that he looked unkempt, earnest and alien in a way that most humans would notice; alien in a way that Gabriel had long ago learned to hide. 

"That duck is breathing fire," his brother commented idly. 

"Most people would say something about it being a hundred feet tall before they even thought about the fire," Gabriel pointed out. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" The angel's jaw lifted, his head tipped to the side, a questioning look in his eyes. "I don't bother to remember peons. So you tell me, who are you?" 

"Castiel," the angel replied, implacable, in that same gravelly tone. It was pleasant to the ear, Gabriel noted. "I've been looking for you." 

"Yeah? You and all of Heaven," Gabriel snorted. "What do you want?" 

"To talk." It was a short answer; straight to the point, yet Gabriel wasn't sure he believed it. Castiel's eyes, piercingly bright blue, were expectant. 

Gabriel would have sighed, but didn't see the point. It wasn't like the sound would mean anything to most angels. "I don't want to talk. I'm kind of busy here, don't you see?" 

"I see," Castiel noted. "It seems unimportant. I should tell you that I don't intend to try to convince you to return to Heaven, if that's what you're worried about. I'm merely seeking understanding." 

An angel, seeking understanding? Gabriel laughed, sharply, harshly, right in the lesser angel's face. "Yeah, right. Material for manipulation, maybe." 

"No," Castiel countered. "I have little to do with Heaven at the moment." 

"How long?" he challenged. "How long have you had little to do with Heaven?" 

"It depends on how you see time," Castiel murmured. "For me it has been longer than it has been for you, but that doesn't change anything. I just wished to speak with you. Every angel who has left had their own reasons, and I have some understanding of two. I would like to expand my understanding, because then I might be able to figure out why we've been lied to for so long." With the word "we", Castiel could only mean the rest of the lesser angels. 

Gabriel knew that Castiel didn't mean that he'd been away from Heaven longer. It was more likely that he was speaking of some sort of time distortion that affected Castiel, and possibly no one else. Obnoxiously and hoping that the lesser angel would notice it, he leaned toward Castiel and said, "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." He waggled his eyebrows, just to be more irritating, fully expecting it to be lost on the lesser angel. 

An arched eyebrow at his juvenile behavior was all he got for his trouble, but even that was a shocker. "I didn't think Heaven would like it if I were to seek Michael out and stab him in the throat," Castiel said mildly. 

The archangel had not been expecting that one. "Wow. So you're with Lucy?" he asked, still absorbing. 

"I fully expect, given the opportunity, I would do the same with him. Unfortunately," and here, Castiel's tone turned cynical and mocking, "I have my doubts against surviving such an encounter, thus have decided to wait." 

"Wow. That's an astonishing amount of cynicism, little brother," Gabriel said, not even sure if he was making fun. 

"2008 and 2009 were really rough years," Castiel replied, confirming Gabriel's time distortion theory. 

"That bad, huh?" he asked, nonplussed. 

"You died." Castiel was utterly serious about it, and even seemed like the incident had affected him strongly. "I died. Twice. It wasn't a good time." 

"Twice, huh? How'd you manage that?" Gabriel had almost completely forgotten about Duckzilla, who still rampaged in the background. 

"Pissed off archangels." Castiel shrugged. "Too close to a prophet at the wrong time, once, Lucifer the next." 

"So, end of the world?" 

"End of the world," Castiel confirmed. 

"Anything interesting happen you know, since 2008?" Gabriel could only suspend his disbelief because he wasn't sure that this angel even knew how to lie. If he did, then he did it extraordinarily well. 

Castiel seemed to think on it for a moment. "I found an evil rock; took up drinking; broke a soul out of Hell; ate hamburgers; gained a twin; spoke to Kushiel." He stopped and thought a little longer. Then he shrugged, "Nothing terribly interesting, to someone of your character." 

Gabriel choked. "I think I need a drink. Nevermind, can't get drunk." Castiel offered him a flask and he took it anyway. The contents were sweet and hot, like cinnamon schnapps. "Hmm... Good stuff." It was too bad that it wouldn't do much to him. 

"I like the cinnamon," Castiel said, urging him to sit down and offering him some cinnamon candies. 

He sat and took them, and waved Duckzilla into nonexistence. At least Castiel planned to be good company while they didn't get drunk. What an unusual fellow... 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I got a little more of my starting vibe in this one, even with all the weird, which, by the way, I like. As always, suggestions welcome, even hoped for, and if I like it, I may use it.
> 
> Next Time: Graceless Hangover (or In Which Archangels Prove to Be Inappropriate) Jimmy wonders why there's a hungover archangel on the couch, cuddling Crowley, the giant snake (whatever, food's more important). Some time afterwards, Cas pays a visit to his former abode.


	5. Graceless Hangover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Gabriel shows his obnoxious side, Castiel has serious business to attend to (not really), and Kit finds that something has been making waves on the Hellmouth.

~@~

There was no food in the kitchen, Jimmy noted irritably. For some reason there was an overabundance of tea, but no food at all. He suspected Crowley's Britishness for that. It wasn't like Jimmy even liked tea; he could drink it, if coffee wasn't available, but he didn't actually like it. Tea did not a meal make, and Jimmy was far more interested in getting a meal than in discovering the truth behind the tea. 

"Hello, human," he grumbled to himself, finding that there was more than enough money in his wallet to cover another trip to the burger place. He wasn't sure why there was still plenty of money in his wallet, but didn't think questioning it was a good idea. Then again, he wasn't sure if he wanted burgers again, since he'd had a couple the night before, while Castiel was off doing his flitting thing. 

As far as Jimmy could tell, Cas was in the mansion with him, but when he reached out to sense him (and he still wasn't sure about this ESP thing), all he got was a sharp buzzing sound for his troubles that sounded suspiciously like an egg timer. The sound grew louder as he walked toward the designated common room, and once he reached the door, he could hear a suspicious, frantic hissing sound. 

There was a drunken archangel lying unconscious on the couch, tightly clutching a frantically squirming, huge snake of an unknown variety. Jimmy suspected that it was Crowley. After having many discussions with the fake-demon, some of which had disintegrated into hissing, he was fairly certain that that was Crowley's hiss. Thinking to rescue the poor guy, Jimmy started across the room, only to trip over the body in the middle of the floor. 

Cas, when he slept, slept like the dead, only more vengefully. Jimmy had never had the opportunity to see Castiel's sleeping habits in person, but he could remember Dean saying something about it. The angel was curled on his side, breathing loudly, almost snoring. The beige trench coat looked messier than usual, and that was a great indication of the rest of his person. His hair didn't even have the semblance of order, and Jimmy could only see a flash of his tie, right under his collar. The rest was mysteriously hidden. 

"Looks like someone had a fun night," he uttered, and poked at the unconscious angel with the toe of his shoe. "Hello? Cas? Castiel? Are you aware, Cas?" The only response he got was a snore that sounded like it might still be drunk. Crowley, if that was indeed him, wriggled more wildly in the archangel's grasp, and his hiss had taken on a hopeful tone. "I'm coming, I'm coming, but I make no guarantees." He stepped over Cas in his quest to rescue Crowley. "Hey, asshole," he said, nudging one of Gabriel's hands. "Let go of the snake." 

Just like that, the archangel's hands relaxed, and Crowley was free. He made it over to Cas, still in serpent form, before changing back. "Not fun," he groaned. "Bring a... a... Manchester. He brought a bloody archangel back with him. How the... Manchester, did they get so drunk?" 

"Cas is special," he responded. "I'm looking for food, and honestly, Cas can suffer through his hangover on his own this time, thank you." 

"Right." Crowley disappeared, and after waiting a few minutes, Jimmy suspected that he wasn't coming back. 

Unintentionally parroting Crowley, he said, "Right..." and headed out the front door, not bothering to make sure that _he_ was less rumpled. 

~@~

He might not have chosen to walk into the main part of town if he had realized that it was a Saturday. Teenagers were likely to be running rampant, and other than the time he had spent as one, Jimmy had never spent much time with teenagers. In other words, he didn't know how to handle them, other than treating them like adults. 

Jimmy hadn't quite reached his destination, a small place he had noticed earlier in the previous day, before all the drama with Cordelia and the Bronze, when a voice called out to him from behind. Actually, the voice could have been calling out to anyone, but he knew that it wasn't because he knew the voice, from the prior evening, and the moniker he was given also sounded familiar. "Hey Mr. Not-as-glowy!" Jimmy stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, and turned his head to glance at the speaker. It was Jesse, just as he had thought. "Sorry," the boy gasped, he had been running, as he reached Jimmy. "I'm sure I got your name last night, but I forgot it, what with everything else that was going on..." 

"Not a good habit to have," Jimmy stated with a slight shrug. For Jesse's benefit, he introduced himself, "Jimmy Novak. How did Angel handle his transition? It didn't seem like a good time for me to stay there, so I'm sure you understand why I left." 

"Yeah, man, of course." Jesse looked really uncomfortable for a moment. "I think I should have recognized you when I saw you, yesterday. Sorry about that." The boy huffed for breath before speaking again. Apparently his run hadn't been a short one; that, or he wasn't in good shape. "I mean, you look exactly the same, except you know..." 

"We act different, yes, I do know." Running a hand through his hair (and realizing that he hadn't even seen a comb yet, that morning), he made the turn toward the Espresso Pump anyway. He could have sworn that the sign had proclaimed sandwiches and soup too. If it didn't, he would have to find a different destination. The sound of music coming from the front of the place was a pleasant surprise. He was no music connoisseur, but he knew what he liked, and while Dean's music was alright, he could definitely say that he liked this better. 

Jesse, on the other hand, looked mortified. "Oh my god, that's Giles!" He looked like a kid who had just caught his parents making out in a semi-public place. "What is he doing here?" 

"Playing good music," Jimmy replied, and went inside, straight to the counter without waiting and saw all manner of pastries. He wasn't usually a pastry sort of guy, the oogy cinnamon roll from last night aside, but every single one drew his attention. There were fritters, pillow cookies, scones, donuts and... cream puffs. He had been thinking of a good sandwich, maybe with horseradish, but those cream puffs were absolutely, sinfully beautiful. Jimmy swallowed. "Two cream puffs," he said, pushing a five dollar bill over the counter. If they proved to be really good, he would buy a dozen of them, bring them back and share them with Cas and maybe Crowley and Gabriel. 

He sat down in a corner to enjoy them. It couldn't be possible, yet it was; the cream puffs were even _better_ than they looked. They were so good that when someone cleared their throat nearby, Jimmy flushed vividly over how distracted he had been. He looked up to see an older gentleman in wire framed glasses, looking rather uncomfortably at him. "Mr. Novak, I presume?" the man asked, and Jimmy nodded, reaching for a paper napkin before he lost the filling all over his hands and the table. "Rupert Giles." 

"Yes? What may I do for you?" For some reason, in spite of the interruption, and the way Jimmy's life had been going recently, it had gotten easier and easier to keep up a polite façade. 

"Jesse tells me that you were involved in that little incident last night," said Giles, sitting down across from Jimmy. 

"Ah, Angel and his abomination," Jimmy sighed. 

Giles seemed surprised at Jimmy's words. "Isn't that a little harsh?" 

"If you can say that, you couldn't sense it, what someone did to that poor man's soul." Jimmy set the cream puff down, his usually indomitable appetite temporarily fled. "I'm not sure what the story behind it is; perhaps he deserved some for of retribution, but that was beyond overboard." 

"What, exactly, was done to him?" asked Giles. "None of those there seemed sure." 

"Do you mean 'what did Cas do?' or 'why did Cas do it?'" He sadly prodded at the cream puff, certain that if he picked it up now, the nausea from the night before would come back. Although he had asked, Jimmy didn't bother to wait for Giles to clarify. He could answer both questions just as easily as only one. "What Cas did: he removed a curse, gave him back his humanity, untwisted the metaphysical pretzel his soul was twisted into with that demon. Why he did it: the metaphysical pretzel thing was about as unnatural as it gets. I've never seen anything like it; didn't know it was possible; didn't want to know that it was possible. Whoever did that is probably rotting in Hell right now, and if they haven't already, they'll soon be receiving the personal attention of the big guy." 

Giles was quiet. "The girls said you reacted at though his presence was physically sickening you." 

"Not so much him, as his hitchhiker and how they were twisted together," Jimmy corrected, pursing his lips. The prodding of the cream puff became a little more vicious. He really did want to eat it, but he didn't think he could bring it to his mouth at the moment. "Thank you for reminding me," he said, once he thought about it. 

"My apologies," said Giles. "Miss Chase said that you are some kind of psychic?" 

A startled laugh escaped Jimmy at that. "I'm not surprised that she would interpret it that way. The reality of it is more complicated." 

"Can you explain?" 

Giles seemed to have one of those personalities that was easy to talk to, so, after checking to see where Jesse was (safely just outside the door), Jimmy decided to talk. "Say there's these creatures, higher beings, really, that can't interact with humans on a normal basis." 

"Go on," Giles responded, interested. 

"In order to do so, they need a physical front for said interaction. Here and there, scattered throughout the world and possibly beyond" as Jimmy had no idea about the people on other planets "are humans with an innate... Let's call it a gift. There are these people with this gift, who can see and speak to these higher beings without being damaged. With permission, the higher beings can use the bodies of these people to interact with other humans. Are you following me?" 

"I believe so," Giles said. There was something dark in his tone, like Jimmy's story was making him angry, but he was determined not to show it. 

"I met one of these beings, say a couple of years ago, my time, and he told me he was an angel" at this point, Giles was beginning to gain an angry flush "and I believed him. I still believe him, for reasons a bit beyond easy explanation. He asked for permission to use me, and I agreed. Something... strange happened, and we both must have died, and when we came back, 'we' was just him. Awkward, right?" Jimmy shrugged, wishing he had thought to get a coffee. "Then he came to Sunnydale and had to ditch the body for a little while. This was... weeks... perhaps a few of months ago? Miss Chase would know; that's when we met. Just about a week ago, something else happened, so Cas and I are... not the same as we used to be. If he's not what he says he is, and I should know if anyone does, then he's been lied to about it his whole life; possible, but unlikely. Anyway, it left him a bit more human than he should be, and me... a bit more angel than I should be." 

"Angels are wrathful beings from the heavens," Giles said, and it sounded a little like he was quoting, but if so, it wasn't something Jimmy recognized. It was true, but in modern tradition, that seemed to be forgotten. 

"Pretty much," Jimmy agreed. "Funny how meeting the real deal can make a man lose his faith." Those words deserved a moment of silence, which they got, then the air behind Jimmy was filled with angelic presence, and not just any angelic presence; it was an archangel. 

"Ah, cream puffs," Gabriel said, and stole the half finished pastry that Jimmy _had_ been intending to finish. The archangel situated himself comfortably, on the edge of the table with his feet against the wall to hold himself up (like he needed to). "You know, littlest brother, Cas didn't know that he was buzzing someone's wards every time he came to town. I love this place." He helped himself to the other cream puff, much to Jimmy's chagrin. "Totally ruined them... Mmm these are pretty good." 

"Please don't take them all," Jimmy requested. "I was hoping to at least finish one, and bring some home for later." 

"Yeah, well, Jimmy Bean," Gabriel said, intentionally grating on Jimmy's nerves, "I would have asked if you knew about the Hellmouth, but that's fairly obvious." He couldn't see Giles through Gabriel, but the man had to be losing patience. "What with little bro and his visit to the big bad whip wielder down below..." 

"Excuse me," Giles began, but before he could continue, Jimmy interrupted. 

"Yeah, Cas is good friends with Kushiel, it seems." It wasn't a lie, and from what he had seen of Castiel's memories of the Garden, Kushiel actually did like Cas. "So, you better be careful with your words, _Gabriel_. And if you don't want to take a trip to visit the big bad whip wielder in the sky, you'll get off the table before I scream for Zachariah, who, I'm sure, would love to see you." 

Very quietly, Gabriel got off of the table and gave Jimmy an inscrutable look. He shook his head. "No, I don't think I know what to do with either one of you. Do you have any idea how weird you are?" He disappeared before Jimmy could retort. 

Giles had a pretty good lemon-face, too. "Gabriel? Of six hundred wings? The messenger, Gabriel?" 

"Six hundred wings? That's a lot of wings." Jimmy was impressed, but he also wondered if that was just the myth. "But yeah, that Gabriel." 

"I just tried to scold an archangel?" Giles asked. 

"If it makes you feel better, he's not in Heaven's good book." Jimmy poked at the empty bag that had once contained another cream puff. 

"No, I don't think it does," the man admitted. "I think... I think I'll be looking up the Christian mythos, now." 

"Might be a good idea," Jimmy said, nodding. "Most mythos, that I've noticed, are actually connected to something, when they aren't pure fiction, and a surprising amount of the Christian stuff has a basis in fact..." 

~@~

When Jimmy returned to the mansion, Crowley was horrified. His hair was still in disarray and his shirt was rumpled; truth was, if Crowley had bothered to asked, Jimmy would have admitted to having fallen asleep in it. When the demon (ha!) tried to give him an ultimatum, "Don't leave the house without someone checking to see if you're, you know, appropriate," he just laughed. 

~@~

Castiel had awakened with a pillow in jammed into his face. He didn't need to breathe, so he was lucky in that, but it was still irritating, along with the strange pulsing sensation in his head. It was perhaps his third hangover, and he didn't like it any better than the previous ones. Strangely, functionality through a hangover seemed to grow easier with practice, so unlike the previous times, he scraped himself off of the floor comparatively quickly. He willed his nausea away, and tried to figure out what he was going to do with his day. 

When in doubt, he preferred to seek advice; as Jimmy was out at the moment (getting breakfast, from the sound of it), and probably too close to the problem to be able to offer an unbiased opinion, Jack was probably his best option. He took a few minutes to sort himself out then reached for Jack to determine his location. 

Jack was not on Earth. It wouldn't be the first time that he had spoken to Jack on another planet, but for some reason, the angel still had no idea what the SGC actually did. _Humans get into the strangest places,_ he thought, not bothering to wonder why Jack kept showing up on other planets. All he cared was that it had something to do with the SGC, and Jack was in these places of his own volition. 

He suspected, as he stood behind the man, silently assessing the situation, that he should associate "Jack is not on Earth" to "Jack is busy". Jack's team appeared to be in the middle of some kind of deep discussion with the planet's natives, and from what he could tell, there were things being lost in translation. Daniel Jackson was a great linguist, but he was still human. 

"Should I come back another time?" he asked, and Jack made that strange clutching motion that he made whenever Castiel startled him. 

"What the heck are you doing here, Cas?" the man demanded, eyes wide from the fright the angel had given him. The natives looked nearly as frightened. Castiel found that odd; the natives should not have been able to anticipate his appearance better than Jack should. 

"Seeking advice," he replied absentmindedly. "I can leave, if that would be better?" 

While Jack opened his mouth first, Daniel was the one to speak, "Actually, if you want to be helpful..?" 

The angel dropped his chin, thinking. Daniel probably wanted help with their negotiations, though Castiel wasn't sure how much help he would be - He was a warrior; he didn't specialize in communication. "What would you have me do?" he asked anyway. Before Daniel could answer, there was a rush of the sound of wings at Castiel's back, and Gabriel was there, in his personal space, patting enthusiastically at his shoulder. 

"Hey, do you have anymore..?" 

He didn't wait for Gabriel to finish his sentence, just pulled the other flask he had been carrying from his coat pocket, and told the archangel to "Go away, Gabriel." Humming happily, the archangel did just that. After several seconds of silence, during which Jack and his team stared at the angel, he sighed and repeated himself. "What would you have me do?" 

"Hey, Cas, who was that?" asked Jack, nonplussed. 

"An obnoxious sibling," he replied. Then Castiel asked again, "What would you have me do?" In his mind, he could almost hear Dean telling him _"Stubborn, thy name is Cas."_

"Ehrm, we're having communication issues," Daniel finally told him. 

Frowning, he replied, "I'm not good at communication." He had been told so many times, usually by Dean, but lately Jimmy seemed to be the one making the accusations. At the sarcastic look Jack gave him, he continued, "However, I can smooth over your translations until you've got the... knack?" 

~@~

Helping Daniel develop the knack for an unfamiliar language (unfamiliar to Daniel that is, as the angel didn't have the human difficulty with language barriers) turned out to be a relaxing activity, and listening to the team's snarking at each other (except in the case of Teal'c, who merely raised an amused eyebrow at the others' carrying on) reminded him of his time on the road with Sam and Dean. The time he spent with the brothers had made Falling seem worth it, until Dean... But he would rather not think on that. 

It was more important to decide what he was going to do next. There was a strange feeling, like an itch, an urge to return to Heaven, but he didn't think that that was a particularly good idea. To top it off, he had gotten distracted from asking Jack for advice... not that he hadn't asked on arrival. Castiel wasn't sure he liked the fact that he had gotten so easily distracted from his entire reason for being there. 

A flutter of wings interrupted his musing, and he wondered why it was that his siblings were trying to sneak up on him today. This was only the second intrusion, but he felt as though it wouldn't be the last. He glanced up from his position on a park bench (in the snow, somewhere in New Jersey that he was sure he had seen before, probably when Dean called him) to see Uriel's vessel, the same one he had had in the Not-Future, looking down at him with a curious frown. "Yes?" Castiel asked, only because it needed to be said. 

Uriel's presence brought to surface the circumstances surrounding the other angel's death. It wasn't something that Castiel would like to see repeated, but if Uriel's decision was already affecting things... then, unfortunately, his old friend would have to die. "Our superiors have been having difficulty contacting you," Uriel said, examining him closely. 

Was that what that peculiar buzz in his mind was? Funny, Castiel had related it to the itch that desired to return to Heaven. "I haven't been listening," he admitted. "There is no point." 

If Uriel was shocked, he didn't show it. If anything, the unconscious tilt of his wings seemed inquisitive. "I've been asked to bring you back." 

"And I was told to 'Choose'," he countered. "If they cannot remember that order, there's more wrong in Heaven than I had initially believed." 

The other angel was patient with his eccentric breed of reservation, he always had been. It was one of the things that had made Uriel one of his favorite companions in the past; he understood his friend's understated desire for quiet. Knowing Castiel's nature, which was to observe before speaking, Uriel probably was able to grasp the depth of what Castiel actually meant with his observation. What Uriel didn't know was that, coming from Castiel, this was a test, one that he wasn't expected to pass. "There's been something wrong in Heaven for a long time, Castiel." 

And there it was, the opening he had been hoping not to find. "Stagnation," he said. "We are stagnating, Uriel, and I fear that the rot has done more damage to you, than to most." It had occurred to Castiel, some time back, that Uriel's decision to follow Lucifer had been a long time coming. All those times that Uriel had interacted with humanity, it had been as a final test, a test that humanity always seemed to fail. Sighing heavily, allowing his wings to droop just a little bit more than necessary, he asked, "What would you have me do, Uriel?" 

His heart sunk (a very human sensation, one that he didn't appreciate) as Uriel's eyes lit up. 

He had already known that Uriel would fail... but perhaps there was a way to give him a second chance. 

~@~

A short while later, a thick chested man in a leather coat stumbled to a stop near the park bench where the two angels had been talking. His head was tilted sideways, a look of intense concentration on his thuggish face. He could have sworn that he heard something. A soft whine came from beneath the bench and the man let out a startled laugh. It was no wonder he hadn't seen it: if it weren't for the pink around its eyes, it was the same color as the snow. 

"Oh, you poor puppy," he said, picking tiny creature up. It tried, and failed, to bite him, and its breath rattled worryingly in its tiny chest. "Let's take you home and get you warmed up." If nothing else, he could make the puppy's last hours more comfortable. 

~@~

Jimmy was still busy when Castiel returned to Sunnydale. He wasn't sure if it was amusing or not that the man was allowing himself to be dragged to and fro by a bunch of teenagers, but there was no mistaking Crowley's opinion on the subject. The other angel was snickering wickedly as he told Castiel all about it. "When he gets back, tell him I went to Hell." 

He could have told Jimmy himself, but he thought that Jimmy didn't like hearing "angel radio", so deemed it better to just leave a message. Ignoring Crowley's cheerful acceptance of the simple task, the angel flitted over to the Hellmouth, and, body and all, went right through it. For some reason, he seemed to be incapable of leaving his physical body behind now that he and Jimmy had been forcibly separated. 

It wasn't until he fell into an exceedingly large flower that he realized that if he wanted to speak with Kushiel again, this was going to take a while. As, the drop was the first thing that happened upon entering the Garden, the conclusion wasn't long coming. Using the stamen to pull himself into a sit, Castiel pondered his options. No matter which direction he went from here, it would still take weeks to get to the center of the Garden, and thus Kushiel's abode. Last time he had come, he had been too inebriated to try to go anywhere, so hadn't even seen his brother. 

He was covered in pollen. As he started dusting himself off, an action he had seen Jimmy do several times now, the flower in which he still stood spoke up. "Hey, could you deliver that pollen down a few rows for me? Second flower on the right, the bright blue one; you can't miss it." 

He blinked. "Alright," he said, because he couldn't see the harm in following the flower's request. 

The Garden never seemed to lack for strangeness. 

Pollen was delivered to a particularly chatty blue tulip (strange, because the flower he had fallen in was a tiger lily), and he was off again. Today, there didn't seem to be any fish in the sky, just birds larger than him, and bees nearly his equal in size. Some of them were red plaid, so Castiel kept an eye on them, wondering if one of them would turn out to be his friend 564 of the 75th Squadron. When one came close, he asked, "Is 75th Squadron out today?" 

The bee shook its head at him. "75th is at a battle site on the east side of the daisies for a regularly scheduled battle with the Redcoats." 

"Perhaps I'll see them some other time, then." It was better not to interrupt a battle in progress, not for idle chatter, anyway. 

An hour later, much to Castiel's chagrin, a large paw swatted him out of the air. "You're much smaller than before, little Angel," said a voice that came from behind a familiar set of very sharp looking teeth. Bright green eyes looked down on him, the slit of each pupil just as tall as he was. "I don't suppose you'd make a good snack?" the cat asked. 

"All glow, no substance," Castiel said, repeating the words of the rabbit from his first visit. 

"More substance now, I think," the cat contradicted, its tongue darting out to lick its chops. "You certainly didn't have much before, but now..." Castiel did his best to climb to his feet, only to find himself caged by the cat's claws, as it continued staring down at him. "I'm doing the Master a favor," the cat told him then its mouth opened and nearly engulfed one of Castiel's wings. The prickling of the cat's teeth was minimal as it lifted the angel by the half-folded wing. 

~@~

When a very human looking hand gently extracted his wing from the grinning feline's mouth then wrapped completely around his body to lift him to Kushiel's eye level, Castiel felt it was appropriate. Kushiel was an archangel, after all, and the archangels had always been that much bigger than him. It was far stranger, he thought, looking at them almost eye to eye (in Kushiel's case) or needing to actually look down in order to meet their eyes (like with Gabriel, who had chosen a particularly short vessel, which Castiel figured he should ask about, some day). 

The archangel's eyes were bright and intensely grey, like chlorite glinting in the sun, or crinkled metal foil, and he looked far too interested in the much smaller angel's predicament; his very, very tiny predicament. "I hear you came to the Garden again," the archangel said, his breath washing over Castiel and ruffling his feathers with the scent of tea and cardamom and the barest hint of brimstone. "I had expected you to visit, but then you left." 

Unnerving as his position was, Castiel was never one to allow such discomforts to dissuade him from his course of action. "I was intoxicated when I came," he said, shrugging. Grey eyes blinked a little closer, and one crimson eyebrow rose inquiringly. He sat back in Kushiel's palm. It wouldn't have been difficult to get down, but he suspected that Kushiel wasn't going to allow that. "There was no actual reason for me to be here, last time," beyond visiting, that was, "so I allowed myself to become distracted; however, this time, I wished to seek your opinion on something." 

"Yes?" Kushiel asked. Then, seriously, he added, "You're different," like it was a curious revelation. 

"Uriel," Castiel sighed. "I did something I shouldn't have been able to do. I'm certain, in fact, that it was completely beyond my capabilities, before. It seemed as though it was something within your realm of... influence." 

"What did you do?" There was a smile on the archangel's face, though it didn't come into easy focus from Castiel's position. 

Biting his lip (a gesture that he wouldn't have preformed before; it was too human), he began, "I gave him a final chance." Then he explained, as best as he could, the fine line Uriel had been walking, about to Fall, about to Rebel... and the chance he had given their brother. 

~@~

Malik was beginning to think that Castiel took his belief that nothing could surprise him any more as a challenge. The other angel, currently as small as a fairy (something Malik took an unexpected delight in), was the only thing in millenia to truly surprise the archangel. He had already done it often in their short acquaintance, and was doing it again, even now. Just by meeting his eyes, Castiel surprised him; so few had ever been capable of doing so. 

Uriel wasn't a surprise. Malik had known for a long time just what it would take for that one to come under his jurisdiction. What Castiel described, indeed, what he remembered of Uriel from Castiel's thoughts when they had communed, was something he had predicted long ago. "I don't suppose you'll return to normal size today?" he asked, distracting himself from his thoughts. 

Tiny, azure eyes looked up at him inquisitively. Castiel was unlikely aware of the image he presented. "The rules are strange here," the miniature angel finally said, with a slight shrug that made his wings tickle Malik's palm. "It will be some time, I think, before I'm able to manipulate them that way." 

Malik hummed in agreement. "As for Uriel, I don't know what to tell you; only that living in such a limited fashion may be good for him." With those words, and the other angel still cradled in one hand, he turned to walk to his table. "Would you like some tea, before you go?" 

Castiel did stay for tea, though he didn't drink much. Instead, as they conversed, he sucked on a pale brown grain of sugar that was too big to fit into his mouth, like it was candy. He barely even flinched when the archangel gave in to the mildly irrational urge to pat his head with one finger, even though it was obvious that the pat was too hard. Malik realized, quite suddenly, just what it was that little girls found so amusing about dolls. 

He watched, enthralled almost, as the tiny angel did his best to drink from his tea cup, a task made difficult by the fact that it was taller than him. Castiel shortly grew irritated with it and gave up. "You don't have anything smaller, do you?" he asked. 

Although he had nothing of the sort on hand, it was hardly a problem to conjure an appropriate sized cup of tea for his guest. "My apologies for not considering that earlier," Malik said, touching a plate with biscuits and the like and shrinking it down to the right size as well. He could have done so earlier, but then he would have lost the entertainment of watching Castiel attempt to use a cup the same size as Malik's. He also could have changed his own size, and that of his table to match Castiel. For that matter, he could have changed Castiel to match _him_. 

He was well aware that by not bothering to offer, he was being a dick. That didn't stop the situation from being entertaining. Of course, now Castiel had a tiny tea set to match his tiny size, and his irritability quickly faded as he again became a polite guest. Malik wanted to push him; he liked seeing that prickly side of Castiel's personality, and just like his inability to drink from the large cup, his actions (though contained) when he grew irritable were all too entertaining for Malik to watch. As he watched the angel fidget, Malik wondered what he should do to get that kind of reaction out of Castiel. 

Again giving in to the urge to do so, he patted his tiny brother on the head with an extended finger. 

~@~

Southern California was too darned hot for as late in the year as it was. The kitsune chortled to herself. The heat was a nice change, at least. She had spent the last month running away from Canada, after some rat-minded Trickster had set Duckzilla off near Ottawa; Kit did not want to be blamed. It wasn't that Duckzilla wasn't a great idea, but she didn't care for how destructive it was (also, the fact that it was Duck _zilla_ told her all she needed to know as to who to blame. Only one Trickster she could think of could be so... rat-minded and name something anything-zilla. "Fuckin' Loki," she grunted. The engine of the truck she was driving gave way with a loud clatter and the vehicle rolled to a stop. "Fuckin' Chevy," she complained, as smoke rose from beneath the hood. 

She should probably just leave it to someone else. It wasn't like the truck was hers, anyway. It belonged to some dude who had been driving it illegally for a while. The damned thing wasn't currently registered, and his license had been cut after too many DUIs nearly five years previous. 

There was a sign above her head, proclaiming that she was entering Sunnydale, with the "dale" struck through and replaced with "hell" in black spray paint. _Well,_ she supposed, _it doesn't really matter where a girl goes, teenagers are the same._ It was hard to believe that Castiel (the acquaintance she had with whom already seemed too short, which was one of the reasons she came to California) lived in such a small town, but she trusted her instincts, and her instincts had led her here. 

Giving the sign a dubious frown, she clambered out through the truck's window, not even bothering to open the door. The keys were still in the ignition, and the only proof that it had been stolen lay with the fox fur shed all over its ancient, cracking upholstery. If only Kit had known how to teleport, she would have instead ditched the truck in a more compromising place. DUIs weren't the worst things on the owner's record. 

The thought of teleporting led her back to thoughts of Cas, and his description of an intoxicated teleport. It had sounded as though the world was lucky that no one was injured aside from a caribou and several penguins, and he had stopped his explanation right there, leaving her to try to extrapolate just what had happened to said creatures. It was almost infuriating, and she highly suspected that he would have made a terrific Trickster, if only he saw the point of it. 

Thoughts of Cas going Trickster (gave her a creepy pleasant shiver, that thought) aside, the two-tailed fox was lucky that _she_ was a Trickster. There wasn't much out there that could easily kill one of her kind, and in a place like Sunnydale, that could only be a good thing. After all, it wasn't like this was her first visit to Sunnydale; the town was on a Hellmouth, and everyone knew that places like that were awesome tourist attractions to creatures like her. It was like a trailer park American teen getting to go to the Eiffel Tower, or getting to see the pyramids at Giza. The only difference between the two as far as Kit was concerned was that for her, it was just plain easier to get around for supernatural beings. 

Not that she believed herself to be anything but natural, she mused as she padded toward town. She was _au natural_ , and all she had to do to prove it was to lift her arms. Kit snickered at that thought. Americans had strange ideals, wanting to look like Roman statues, she suspected. She had always liked the David statue, but that was because of the obvious, and unlike many of her kind, she hadn't been born yet when it had been commissioned. 

"Oooh, a bar," the fox noted and paused. Willy's Alibi, the sign up front proclaimed. It wasn't like Cas was expecting her or anything. 

... 

The atmosphere inside of the bar was dejected. It hit Kit like a wave when she opened the door, and she nearly gagged as the feeling washed over her. She had been in bars like this, on several Hellmouths, and usually they were almost too lively even for her taste. There were only a couple of vampires, and they were wary, tired and thin things. Sensing an opportunity to gather information, something Kit was rarely amiss in, the fox sidled over to their booth and sat with them. They stared at her with yellowed eyes and bared fangs for the prerequisite ten seconds before putting away their game faces for civilized conversation. 

"What do you want?" the female, a pale (most vampires were paler, though) blonde who looked even more dejected than the rest of the bar's patrons asked. "If you're looking for an in with the Master, you aren't going to get it." The large male at her side sat quietly and brooded. 

"Just wanted to know what's the what," Kit replied, shrugging. "And I guessed that you two had better information than anyone else in this dump." 

The male grunted in a sarcastic manner while the female, who was obviously in charge, frowned. "We're leaving," she said after a moment. "This place is cursed. Ever since we lost Luke at that old church, it's been one thing after another. At first, I thought I was lucky, that I somehow missed the lightshow in the crypt, but now... I can't even make minions - minions! - that can survive one damned night. Between that _thing_ and the Slayer..." the female vampire moaned, dropping her head into the crook of her elbow. 

Kit sucked her lip through the gap in her teeth, thoughtful. "That thing?" she asked, hoping for clarification. 

"It's Light," the vampiress whimpered. "It's Light, like the sun and crosses and rosewood and churches. I was outside, and its light filled the crypt so bright, it burned, and now... It's still _here_ , on the Hellmouth, and it won't leave, and it's bringing other things, bigger, brighter things here, and this is no place for a vampire anymore. And this, this uncommunicative bastard is the only minion that I've managed to keep since that _thing_ came." 

As if to prove that he was capable of communicating, the large male said, "Darla's distraught." 

Mockingly, Kit stated, "I see no problem with his communication skills." The female vampire didn't seem to notice that she was being condescended towards. The kitsune sighed at the lack of a response to the insult. "I guess the booze here isn't shit," she commented. It didn't take long before she realized that Darla wasn't going to give her any more information, so she moved on to the bartender, who gave her nervous looks even as she took to a bar stool. "So..." She waited until he actually looked at her to continue. "I'm thinkin' gin. And a good tip if you can tell me what's goin' on around here. I ain't seen a bar this depressed in _years_..." 

He seemed nervous, but guys like that usually were, and the promise of a large tip was usually a good lure, even if she had to scrape the bottoms of her pockets to find enough cash to give him even a mediocre one. As a Trickster, Kit _could_ give him a pine-cone and make him think it was gold, but she doubted she would be all that welcome next time she came if she did that. No, it was usually best to pay with mundane methods, even if the pine-cone was a good thought for later, perhaps. 

It didn't take long to find that he knew nothing of local politics (in the "working hard to keep it that way" sort of way). That is, for some reason, he specifically knew nothing about the mayor and whatever he was up to. What he did know was that there was apparently a couple of new big bads on the Hellmouth. The first one sounded a bit like Darla's "Light", and now that Kit got to thinking about it, she suspected that that was Cas, and knowing him, he was completely unaware that he was scaring the crap out of the population of a small town. The second one... 

As a kitsune, a pagan god and a Trickster, she didn't know much about this "Serpent of Eden", but as a creature born after the advent of Christianity, she knew that it was a biblical creature (possibly a monster, possibly a demon). Apparently he wasn't even _doing anything_ and he was freaking out the locals. His mere presence was upsetting the local supernatural community. 

"You wouldn't know where I can find a fella called 'Casti-el', wouldja?" she asked him, interrupting a diatribe about what these things were doing to the bartender's business. At his horrified look, the kitsune grinned. "Yeah, I got some idea who I'm askin' after, so please make it a little easier, wouldja?" 

"I don't know anything," he squealed. "Things like that ain't got nothin' to do with me. You couldn't pay be enough to even think about where _he_ might be." 

"I guess it's a good thing," Kit sighed. "It's not like I've got enough to be wastin' on tips." 

"Wait, wait. Are you saying... after all that, you aren't tipping?" Now the man was beginning to look offended. "I might know a little, you know." 

"Naw, it's a waste anyway..." 

"Serious. I've got a little info. Not cheap info, either." He leaned over the bar earnestly. "Before I say, I gotta see how much you'll leave." 

"Horrible tactics," she critiqued, frowning. "I need to know how much it's worth before I even think of puttin' anything down. I wasn't born yesterday, kiddo." 

"Fine," he grunted. He scowled for several seconds before continuing. "If I was lookin' for a guy like that, I'd look for new wards up in the rich part of town, if you know what I mean. I ain't sayin' that he's up there for sure, but it's most likely spot a guy like me could figure." 

It was worth the tip she'd been contemplating. "It gives me a place to start anyway, so thanks." And she promptly emptied her pockets. If he was disappointed, he didn't show it, just carefully picked up every last penny. 

"If a guy like that actually drinks, and doesn't fry my customers, you might tell him that there's a decent bar in the area that, you know... we don't hide what we are, here." A shameless plug for the bar, she suspected, but the gin wasn't all that bad, and Cas did drink, so she'd mention it. 

"Don't know about him not frying your custom, though," she told him as she got ready to leave. "He might be convinced, though." 

~@~

The fox didn't know it, but she missed Castiel by about twenty minutes. He checked in with Jimmy and Crowley, mostly to let them know that he was going to be gone again, for a bit longer this time, and made a trip upstairs, as Dean would refer to it. The angel had been putting this off ever since coming to the past. There were so many reasons that he didn't want to be in Heaven. 

Heaven was too much like a broken home, to him. Gabriel likely felt similarly about it. Beyond that, there were many angels that Castiel just didn't want to see, for fear of how he might react to them. Zachariah was on the top of the list of angels he didn't want to see, followed closely by Michael and Lucifer, who tied for second place. More than that, however, was the image in his mind of an innocent Heaven, which didn't match the truth nearly so much as he wished it would. Perhaps he didn't want to ruin his memories with the truth, or perhaps Heaven really had been that naïve, and if it was... If it was, then he would be the one to ruin Heaven. 

The only person here that he wished to speak with was Joshua, yet somehow, he ended up in a completely different part of Heaven than where he would find Joshua. Heaven was immeasurable in size, partly due to its non-physicality; in that, it was similar to Hell. It wasn't strange at all that he found himself in a part of Heaven that he had no memories of. 

It was a strange and relaxing place, and like Kushiel's Garden, seemed to have a bizarre sort of pseudo-physicality. It wasn't _real_ though. Castiel was fairly certain of that. In spite of this, he found himself relaxing and sitting down. Even when his presence was recognized by the Host with a happy clatter - a cacophony really, it was like children screaming about the return of a favored pet, though less grating to the senses - he remained at ease. Everything was soft and green, warm and alive, and he could hear a faint tinkling sound like bells. He could have sworn that he could smell something like engine grease and leather as well, and found himself smiling at it. 

It reminded him of Dean, really, and that explained why he found it so relaxing. He doubted that Dean would enjoy sitting in a place like this, though. Then again, one of his favorite things about Dean was how often the man surprised him. _Sam,_ he thought, _Sam would like this place. It would remind him of his brother just as much as it reminds me of him..._

Castiel might have taken a nap, or he may have just zone out, because the next thing he knew, there was an archangel (another one) homing in on him, and it wasn't Raphael. He didn't like the idea of seeing Raphael, either, but Raphael was much better than Michael. 

"A strange place for a Soldier," hummed the archangel, and the very sound of his voice set Castiel's teeth on edge. If the angel hadn't spent so much time in Kushiel's Garden already, he would be unnerved by the sensation. 

"I wasn't aware that Michael was anything but the same," he countered, refusing to look at the archangel, half-fearing that he would see Dean's youngest brother's face looking back at him. 

"I am more than a Soldier," Michael said, his tone disapproving. "As an Independent, you should know that before others." 

_Independent._ Jimmy had commented once, on not understanding what that meant to an angel. "I know that you and Lucifer are cut from the same material," he said. Michael and Lucifer, the brightest of the archangels, were created together, much like Castiel was born of the cosmos alone. 

The archangel, instead of growing irritated, instead seemed interested. "This is true," Michael admitted easily. All of Heaven knew as much, so it would do him no good to deny it. "What is your Choice?" 

Castiel's Choice? _"Choice" was such a laden word when used by angels,_ he mused. "I have made many choices," he prevaricated. 

Michael recognized the misdirection for what it was. "When you were told to Choose, Castiel, what did you Choose?" 

Castiel sighed, continuing to stare into the distance. He had a growing suspicion that the Host was under the impression that his supposed Choice had something to do with the coming war. Uriel had been about to try to convince him to join Lucifer, and here Michael was, trying to force him to tell him what his Choice had been. It was like Michael didn't understand that "Choose" was an ongoing order. "That is not for you to know," he finally said, and felt relief when his cell phone rang, as odd as it was that it was ringing in Heaven. Checking the incoming number, he saw that it was Jimmy, and decided that instead of answering, he would return home. "Don't wait up for me," he said, darkly amused, and with a flap of his wings returned to Sunnydale. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suspect that each time I write of the Garden, it's just going to be little glimpses of what it's like there. It's a complex place, and it remains difficult to describe, unfortunately. Best I can think of is Wonderland meets Army of Darkness meets Labyrinth meets Wonderland again (full circle!). So, yeah, help would be appreciated, as I have no rubber wall when I am home, and have no internet when I have a rubber wall... I know where I'm going, it's just going to take a while to get there... Quite a while...
> 
> Next Time: What Ever Happened to Prophesy Girl? (or In Which Prophecies are Defunct Because of a Meddling Angel) The Anointed never arose, and if nothing else sends Giles' spidey sense tingling, the strange lack of direction of the older vampires left on the Hellmouth does. Cas searches Australia for the angel of silence, who has been silent for far too long, and Crowley wants his Aziraphale.
> 
> Excerpt: _Rupert Giles slipped his glasses off of his face and dug the heals of his hands into his eyes to try to stave of the impending headache. Yes, Rupert, he told himself, Buffy was right. There's nothing strange happening at all. The prophesies said that the Anointed one was to arise tonight, so why is there nothing?_


	6. What Ever Happened to Prophesy Girl?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Anointed didn't arise, there were angel-related headaches all around. Castiel is unintentionally obnoxious, and Aziraphale finally shows his pretty face.

~@~

_"Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide."_ \- Direct Quote from Good Omens 

~@~

The night had been quiet. Absolutely nothing had happened, even though according to prophesy, _something_ was supposed to have happened last night. Rupert Giles slipped his glasses off to rub his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to stave off an impending headache. _Yes, Rupert,_ he told himself facetiously, _Buffy was right. There's nothing strange happening at all. Though the prophesies said that the Anointed One was supposed to arise last night, they were_ wrong _and Buffy was right. Something must be going on that we don't know about, something that the prophets didn't account for..._

He had stayed up all night worrying for nothing, and _Buffy_ was the one who was right. All of the omens said that Sunnydale's Hellmouth was the most active one since Sodom and Gomorrah, yet... nothing was happening. More had been happening _before_ Buffy's arrival than since. It wasn't that she was the Slayer; that couldn't be the reason for the unnatural silence, the lack of things moving. Slayers were frightening to supernatural creatures, but there was little that could frighten an entire _Hellmouth_ into silence. 

Giles had no idea what he was going to tell the Watchers' Council. He would... he would be laughed out of his profession, for claiming that Sunnydale was on a Hellmouth. It was too quiet, now, to be a Hellmouth, and he had already sent that report, well over a month ago. There was no Anointed One, and Hell if he could tell if the Hellmouth was just a piece of fiction, except that Angel seemed to know what he was talking about. "Speak of the devil and who shall appear?" he muttered, nodding a greeting to the ex-vampire who had slipped in while he wasn't watching. 

"The devil," Angel replied, shrugging. One of his hands was tightly clenched in the plastic wrapper of a package of corn crisps. "Dorito?" he offered, holding the bag out. Giles politely declined, and Angel shrugged again, "Your loss. I thought it might be a good idea to tell you that I've had my ear to the ground. Something big was supposed to happen last night, and... Let's just say that a certain demon, who shall remain unnamed, came to me to tell me about it. He didn't seem to be pleased." 

The Watcher waited while the ex-vampire continued to munch on his crisps. Once it seemed that the silence was dragging out, he coughed lightly and said, "So why did he come to you about it?" 

"I guess he expected me to know why," Angel grunted. "I was of the Aurelius line, you know. The Anointed One is an Aurelian prophesy, and by not coming to fruition, it stops up a lot of other prophesies. And to top it off, the Master of the line is gone, blessed out of existence by the look of it. I went down there to look around, and the place felt a lot like that... when Castiel took the demon out of me." 

"So that's what did it," Giles groaned and sat down to polish his glasses. "I was worrying about this all night. You couldn't have come earlier?" 

"I slept," Angel replied, unrepentant. 

"And I could have slept," sighed the Watcher. "I was right to worry, though. It would have happened if it weren't for Castiel. Angel, if this demon comes and talks to you again... What will you tell him?" 

Angel was silent for a long moment; then he said, "I believe in fairies? Honestly, I don't know. Do we even know what Castiel is?" 

"An angel," Giles murmured. "At least he believes so. Wrath of the heavens and all that. I looked it up, and apparently he is the Angel of Thursday, of Travel and... I don't know. It didn't seem to have any relevance to his presence here, on the Hellmouth. I just wish we knew what he wanted here..." 

~@~

Currently, Castiel wanted to know why Jimmy had called him. While he had been glad of the excuse to escape Michael's presence, he had never gotten around to speaking with Joshua (which suddenly seemed a lot less urgent, now that he had been to Heaven and left it, already). "She won't leave the foyer," his double was saying, making an exasperated gesture toward said part of the house. "I don't even know how she found this place..." 

The fox was in the foyer. "She didn't say why she came?" Castiel asked, choosing to amble there in a human manner. 

"No, but she did say something about the local supernatural community being in shambles." With one hand, Jimmy made a broad, dismissive gesture, and then ran it through his hair. "I guess she just wanted to bother you. Speaking of bothering, though, she seemed pretty bothered when I talked to her, freaked out might be a better way to put it. She seemed to think I was a Body Snatcher," he said, amused, as they reached the foyer. 

"It's quite the opposite, I assure you," Castiel told the kitsune as she jerked around, startled at their sudden appearance. 

"I don't know why I continue saying these things around you," Jimmy sighed, and turned to head back into the den. 

Castiel frowned after him, mildly confused. He suspected that he just missed another pop culture reference. "He-ey!" the fox announced, eyes wide and excited. "I know! You're body doubles!" 

He gave it a moment's thought then agreed with Kit's assessment. "I suppose that's true." 

"Pod people," Jimmy corrected with a vague half smile - just to look a little more like a pod person, and Castiel wouldn't have known that without checking first. 

"I can't believe you," Kit declared, glaring. "You let me think you were a body snatcher." 

"No," Castiel said, shaking his head. "That's me." 

The kitsune turned her glare on him. "That's not funny." 

"I wasn't joking." His eyebrows pulled together as he grew mildly exasperated. 

"He wasn't joking," Jimmy agreed. "He stole my body, took it for a joy ride; got stabbed less than an hour later, believe it or not." 

Kit scowled. "Well, you're obviously not a good one." 

"I am too," the angel found himself protesting. "I asked for permission first." Unlike a demon would have... 

"He talked me into it," agreed his former vessel. "Next thing I knew, I was stabbed, shot, blown up... banished to the nether reaches of the universe... Where, exactly, was that Cas? I can't remember it very clearly, and let's just say, self-banishment? You shouldn't do that. It's not good for you." 

"Away," Castiel replied, shrugging. The three stood in the center of the den; this wasn't a problem for the angel, but the other two seemed off put. 

"You've got no chairs," complained Kit. 

"No TV, either," Jimmy agreed. He glanced at Castiel with a faint smile that faded quickly. "We really should get one." 

An hour later, Crowley was wondering how he had been dragged into that particular quest. 

~@~

The clerk in the electronics department wrung her hands together and watched the two strange men peruse the television section. One of the two wore a disheveled suit and trenchcoat and his hair was a mess and he needed to shave, badly, while the other was dressed all in black, with slicked back hair and sunglasses. She was confused as to which one would be safer to approach. There was something foreboding about the first man, and the second was sort of creepy. 

In the end, she decided to approach neither of them, but instead followed them at a safe distance in case they needed help. Sunglasses Guy seemed interested in the new flat screen TVs, but the other guy stopped in front of the portables. "This one's black and white," he said, fascinated, apparently, at the versatility of modern technology. 

She could handle them. She could. She once sold a surround sound stereo system to an honest to god one eyed one horned flying purple people eater (apparently it was really hard to find purple people). She could do this. Menacing auras were not enough to keep her away. These guys needed a TV. She could _sense_ it. Selling things just happened to be her best talent, and in the electronics department, it was showcased. She _would_ sell these guys a TV whether they liked it or not. She would ignore the teenagers having a shopping cart race down the next aisle, and she would ignore the crazy lady loudly trying to talk Trenchcoat Guy's twin (who managed to look very normal, in comparison to his brother) into buying her a giant stuffed rabbit fifteen feet away. 

"We have color now, Castiel. We don't watch black and white TV anymore. Color is better." The other man continued to peruse the much larger flatscreen TVs. "How's the picture quality on this 40 inch over here, miss?" 

The clerk very nearly gasped. The man was talking to her! Slipping into sales pitch mode, she immediately began talking him toward the more expensive newer LCD display televisions. "Picture quality is a lot better on these, and they come with a two year guaranteed warranty. They use less electricity, and the screen stays cool." 

He gave it a dubious look and turned to the other man. "What do you think, Cas?" 

"It's big." There was a faint frown on the other man's face, as though big was not a good thing. "The hotels never had TVs that big." 

_Okay, weirdo,_ she thought and tried to keep it from showing on her face. "Hotels can't afford to have good TVs in every room," she said. "That's why they usually only have smaller ones." 

Pursing his lips slightly, he said, "Oh," like it was a revelation. His eyes flickered over the shape of the television, then the boxes down below. "I'll take five," he decided. "And this one." He held up a much smaller box that contained one of the portables. Turning to Sunglasses Guy, he asked, "Do we need anything else?" 

"Furniture," the man sighed. "A stereo system or five, to go with the five TVs, would be nice. Washer and dryer. A dishwasher and some other kitchen appliances. You know what? I'll take care of it. You go... examine the bedding or something; find out what Jimmy wants... Better, send Jimmy over here, and we'll figure it out. Don't have to worry your pretty little head over it." 

Trenchcoat Guy just looked confused, and the clerk wondered if it was the "pretty little head" comment. Her suspicion was vindicated when he said, "My head is very nearly the same size as yours," in a quietly accusing tone. 

"And I'm not being literal," the man said, rubbing his face with one hand. "It's a saying, Castiel. Just, hand me your little TV and go, send Jimmy over here." Castiel did as he was told, and shortly the twin came over, grinning. "I'm having suspicions, seeing that look." 

"What? Kit wanted the rabbit, and I thought, 'Hey, it's not my credit rating...' so..." The twin, who must have been Jimmy, shrugged. 

"Will you be needing anything else?" asked the clerk, pulling a cart out to get the TVs. 

"I also suspect that the rabbit is just a drop in the ocean compared to this," said Jimmy, before moving to help the clerk. 

She had just enough time to think how human and nice Jimmy seemed in contrast to his twin before she heard Sunglasses Guy yelling, "What are you planning to do with a ten foot rabbit?" and she knew that her day had hit its peak of weirdness. 

~@~

Some days, when Giles walked into the library, there was already someone there. Sometimes it was Buffy; other times it was Angel. On one memorable occasion, it was Cordelia. Today, however, it was _an_ angel. He hadn't understood when Buffy had told him about Castiel. She had said that he looked just like Jimmy, on the surface, but underneath... There was something alien about the way he held himself, about the tilt of his head as he read from one of Giles' books. Without even looking up from the book, he said, "I have been intending to speak with you." 

Not to copy Buffy, but Castiel was giving him a wiggins without even trying. "Have you now?" he asked, carefully making his way to the book cage, where he kept his weapons. He wondered if any of them would even work on an angel. 

"I wouldn't bother, if I were you." Castiel finally looked up from the book he had been perusing. "I have been stabbed with far more deadly things than what you keep in there, and that was when I was weaker. You have nothing that would have much effect on me." 

"I see," Giles replied grimly. 

"You seem to be well armed against demons," Castiel said in a tolerant tone; "although, you should probably carry more salt. It's a common item, which makes it too often overlooked. But better hunters than you and yours rely heavily on it." The Watcher bit down an angry retort as Castiel's face ran through a gamut of inscrutable expressions. It was like the angel only realized that he was being insulting after he had spoken. "My apologies; I don't often speak with unfamiliar humans. I don't mean to offend." 

"What did you want to say to me?" Giles asked, trying to put the irritation behind him. 

"I hadn't thought about it." The angel looked back down at the book in his hand. "This is a very rare book. It had information that I had been seeking in it." He frowned down at it like it had done something wrong by having said information within it. "If I wanted that information, you can be sure that less benevolent creatures would want it. You may wish to keep it under guard." He then quietly passed the book over to Giles. The title was in Sanskrit. "I have already gotten the information I need from it." 

"What information were you looking for?" The book was old, and he wasn't entirely certain that it was one of his. He had a few books in Sanskrit, and this wasn't one of them. It suddenly topped the list of things he needed to translate _now_. 

"Places of imprisonment," Castiel said in what Giles thought was an unnecessarily ominous tone. 

"'Places of imprisonment'?" asked Giles, frowning. "Of what, demons?" He supposed that demons might deserve that tone. 

"Worse," was the harsh reply. A chill went up the Watcher's spine. What could be worse than imprisoned demons? Castiel smiled slightly, as though reading Giles' mind. It abruptly occurred to him that Castiel probably _could_. "Angels." The angel's tone was still dark, but carried an oddly wistful undertone. "Freeing any of them would... probably not be wise." 

Suddenly, Giles knew. "You're going to do it anyway." 

"Perhaps," the angel agreed. "They are my family." 

Giles turned and walked away from the angel, internally grasping for another subject. "What... What happened to the vampires?" he asked. 

"There were vampires?" Castiel blinked at him, brows furrowed in thought. "There were no vampires. There were weak demons that claimed to be vampires, but there were no vampires." 

"Weak?" Giles echoed, feeling a little weak himself. 

"They could not walk in the day. True vampires can." The angel idly traced words on the cover of another book. For some reason, it stuck in the Watcher's mind that it was a schoolbook, Jesse's chemistry book. Of all the books on the table, Castiel was toying with _that_ one, with a vague sort of interest. His bright blue eyes even scanned a few pages before he turned back to Giles. "They could not stand in my presence. They crumbled to dust standing in the same room as me, in the church beneath the school." The angel laughed quietly, shaking his head. "Built over a Hellmouth. I find this ironic." The smile on his face invited Giles to share his amusement, but Giles was stuck on one thing. 

" _Where_ is the Hellmouth?" he asked. 

The smile dropped away immediately. "Directly beneath us." He scrutinized Giles' paling face. "I suspect that someone is up to something," the angel murmured, thoughtful. "It makes sense, to build a church here, but a school? Human teenagers are unstable enough without spending so much time above such an influence. If it would help, I would have reconsecrated the church." 

"A little help is better than none," Giles said hoarsely. 

The angel's blue eyes narrowed on him, and Castiel nodded slowly. "Prudent point." And he disappeared with a sound not unlike rustling feathers. 

The Watcher lifted a hand and dropped it. "Alright," he sighed. "I'll just... look over this book, then. I don't suppose you'll be coming back any time soon?" Only silence answered him. 

~@~

Crowley waited until Jimmy shuffled into the kitchen, eyes halfway glued shut with sleep and hair even wilder than usual, to bring up his bargain with Castiel. Jimmy stared at him blearily, and Crowley wondered if the man even realized just how much not-human he was now. He had exactly the same amount of stubble spread liberally across his jaw as his double, and probably hadn't even _thought_ about shaving since Adam had split the two apart. "I said, 'I want you guys to hold up your end of the bargain.'" He crossed his arms in front of him petulantly, and waited for a response. 

"Okay," Jimmy said and shuffled toward the counter to start the new coffee maker and stare at it for the next five minutes. "Get Aziraphale out here, right?" It had been weeks, and the conversation hadn't even been with Jimmy. Crowley was pretty sure that at the time the man had been perfectly miserable, sitting in the back of the Bentley. "Do you have his number?" 

"Yeah. I got his email address too. He doesn't use it though. His computer is like, twenty years old, and he doesn't really know how to use the internet." Crowley sipped at the cup of tea that had been sitting in front of him and grimaced. Lipton, yuck. "He gets phones though. Although, you have no idea how long that took. Angel's still stuck in the fifties, poor thing." 

Jimmy gave him a half-assed smirk and returned to staring at the coffee. Crowley was inclined to blame Jimmy for the Lipton. He had _had_ Twinings, but it all disappeared, replaced with this orange pekoe crap. Silently, he vowed for revenge, even as he sipped again. Jimmy yawned loudly, and pulled a mug from the cupboard blindly, as he used his other hand to rub the sleep from his eyes. "What time is it in New York?" 

"Ten," Crowley said. "He'll be up, puttering about his shop, not selling anything." Taking out a piece of paper and a pen, he scribbled Aziraphale's number down and slid it across the table to where Jimmy was going to sit. 

The demi-angel glanced at it as he sat down, blowing steam away from his coffee, too timid to actually drink it yet. Jimmy started to nod off again after seating himself. To keep this from happening, Crowley kicked him in the shins, figuring that it would be half-way decent revenge for the tea. Jimmy jerked back upright with a pained expression. "Jerk," he grunted. 

"Yeah, well, that's what you get for swapping good tea for Lipton," Crowley replied, finishing his cup. 

He watched as the demi-angel slowly dialed Aziraphale's number into that tiny cell phone of his. "Hello," he said after a moment. "This is Jimmy Novak, calling on behalf of an Anthony J Crowley? Yes, no, for some reason, he decided not to call you himself." Jimmy yawned into his hand before speaking further. "No, no, he's not in any trouble that I know of. I think he wants you to visit him, because he can't visit you, or something. No, I understand completely. We've got nothing to do with that... Why yes, we were in New York a while back, but the timing wasn't so good, and we were actually planning to go and see you. No, that was Castiel. No, he's not with them... No, Crowley's here, and I don't know where Cas is right now. No, I think he wanted to ask you about the Apocalypse. No, no, nothing like that. Here, talk to Crowley." 

Crowley suddenly found his hand full of a tiny cell phone. "Hey, angel," he said, bemused. 

The tiny speaker let him hear remarkably clearly Aziraphale's put upon sigh. "Crowley, dearest, whatever are you getting up to now? I thought we agreed to lay low for a while? And where's Adam?" 

"Adam... He handed me over to Castiel. Supposedly, he'd be a better protection or something. He might be... if he was ever here. I get kinda nervous, not having any idea where he is most of the time." Across the table, Jimmy wore a concerned look. "It's not so bad out here, though. All the little bads are afraid of me, so they don't give me any trouble." 

"But you want me to come out there... Where are you, Crowley?" Aziraphale had the most coaxing voice Crowley had ever heard. 

"California. Little town called Sunnydale. It has a Hellmouth... Funny thing about that, most of the things in Hell don't like to come out that way. No one wants to go the easy way, you know." Crowley coughed slightly. "Did you know I'm talking on a cell phone? It's about as long as my finger, and not even as thick. Amazing, what humans come up with..." 

"Crowley," Aziraphale chided, "that's not important right now. If you need me to come out there, I will." 

"Yes Mummy," Crowley sighed. "I'd been planning on visiting you when Adam and Pepper were in New York... Then I ran into that angel, and things haven't been the same since. There were hundreds of little demons running around when we got here, but the population seems to be shrinking. I think the poor creatures are running away from Mr. Not-so-Subtle here." Jimmy, a lot more awake now, was making a not so subtle face across the table at him, consisting of an arched eyebrow and a frown. He was quiet, though, just drinking his coffee and eavesdropping on Crowley's conversation. 

"I worry about you sometimes. Will you be easy to find... Of course you will. Give me twenty minutes to close up shop... Nevermind. I seem to have forgotten my Open sign today..." Crowley chuckled at the sound of dismay Aziraphale made at that discovery. "Not much of a loss, I suppose," the angel sighed. "I'll just lock everything up and be right over..." 

He was still chuckling when the angel absentmindedly hung up on him. "He forgot to open shop," he explained to the look on Jimmy's face. "He'll come up with any excuse not to sell his books, but he usually remembers to open the shop." 

~@~

Duma, the Angel of Silence, was supposed to be in the middle of Australia. Sadly, human prophets were often quite vague on such matters. Castiel pondered his search strategy, and had just begun to implement it when another angel, one of lower rank than himself, appeared. He knew her, of course. It shouldn't have shocked him to see her vessel, pale and perfect as it was. Tonasaphiel had died in that same vessel, and to the human eye, she looked exactly the same as she had then, except her eyes were open and bright, and her throat was fully intact. 

"Hello, Castiel," she said cheerfully. White cloth shifted around her body, and she tipped her head, trying to look into his eyes. "I was sent to speak with you, but you already know that, don't you?" 

"I could have made that assumption," he responded dryly, trying to force his human body to breathe evenly. "What are you supposed to say, Tonasaphiel? Michael has already spoken to me, quite recently." 

"And you left him high and dry," she responded, amused. "The whole garrison is worried about you, Castiel, but that's not why I'm here. I'm supposed to ask where Uriel is, and what your Choice was." The other angel seemed to think on these words for a moment then nodded. "That's what I'm supposed to say to you." 

"What were your orders?" Castiel asked, knowing that Tonasaphiel was one who regularly reinterpreted her orders. She was always followed them quite technically; as the humans would say, to the crosses on the Ts and the dots on the Is, without following the actual spirit of her orders. 

"I am to go directly to you, and ask you where Uriel is. Then I am to ask you what your Choice was. Then I am to return to Heaven." She smiled; a coy smile that didn't suit the face of an angel, yet matched her personality perfectly. 

"And what will you do once Heaven's questions are answered?" he asked intently. 

"Take a look, see what Jesus is up to, I suppose. They never said when I had to go back." She pouted slightly. "I think my favorite student must have found something interesting to occupy himself with. Then, perhaps I'll tour the human world. It sounds like it might be fun." 

Castiel sat quietly for several long moments. "Uriel is a dog right now, learning about human mercy. My Choice is... an ongoing project, I'm afraid." 

"Hey, what do you think of these pagan gods that have been running around lately? I could go take a look at them!" 

Ignoring the fact that "these pagan gods" have been around longer than human memory, Castiel replied shortly, "Yeah, you go do that." He was also ignoring the fact that he was still technically her superior, and that with these words, he was basically giving her permission to run rampant and do whatever she wished. Tonasaphiel had never been known for... well, one could always say that she was known as a good teacher and a healer, and leave it at that. Usually, one would forebear mentioning that the Lazarus Incident (an incident that Heaven pretended was _supposed_ to happen, just like Christ supposedly left for Heaven right away) was a sign that she was too good at both, and often went a bit too far when there was no one to hold her back. 

Thankfully she was no longer Castiel's responsibility. Currently, the search for Duma was more important than Tonasaphiel's possible future indiscretions. Said search was likely to be a long one, but he was starting to feel traces of Grace in the rocks late in the day. The traces were faded, years old, and if Castiel were to guess, five years ago, Duma had been _here_. Now, there was nothing but wind and rock, and the faint sound of a distant didgeridoo. 

~@~

It had been worse, Castiel supposed, that he had gotten the place correct, only to find that Duma had vacated the premises quite some time previous. As he had promised Major Carter, he was now using the computers at the NID compound, which hadn't been at all difficult to find. They had extensive geographical data, data that would have been irrelevant to the angel, but quite relevant to the humans who had compiled it. The geographical data was useful now, however, because it helped him to narrow down his search. Duma was no longer in Australia, so his location was, for now, irrelevant. 

It was unfortunate that they had no data on Hell, or on the Realm of Dreams. However, they did have data on Alexandria, which, according to Giles' book, was the location that Raziel had been. Raziel hadn't Fallen, and he wasn't imprisoned, as the book had implied, but he had been... kicked out, for lack of a better phrase, for doing exactly as he was supposed to do. Castiel hadn't understood at the time; in fact, he still didn't quite understand why Heaven had driven Raziel out. 

He suspected that it was another case of Heaven not liking proactive angels. 

On a whim, he looked up Adamical Magic (something that Heaven blamed exclusively on Raziel and his Book of Knowledge), just to see if the NID had access to any of it. He sat blinking and nonplussed at what came up on his screen. Programmed into the binary code that the computers ran on were Enochian runes. Worse, they were poorly written Enochian runes. 

"Someone," Castiel murmured, frowning, "is reaching beyond themselves." And if he would trust any of the government types with Enochian spells, it certainly wouldn't be the men and women at the NID; Daniel, perhaps, and some of the others at the SGC, but not the NID. 

With a finely focused wave of Intent, the angel carefully destroyed every ounce of information contained on all of the NID's computer drives down to the molecular level. No matter how good their information retrieval devices were, there was no way that they would be able to trace down the slightest bit of information from a single computer drive. To make sure that he got his point across, he swept through their hard files as well, disintegrating every piece of paper that had information about Enochian runes on it. 

Luckily for him, their grammar was terrible. 

It was obvious what they had been trying to do. After he had left them that single time, they wanted to acquire him somehow. They didn't specifically say this, but Castiel thought it was rather obvious, and not a surprise, either. What he wanted to know, however, was how they had come across this information. He suspected that it could become a problem later, but he would have to come back to it. He had other things to do. 

~@~

SG1 sat fidgeting (with the exception of Teal'c, who no one would ever accuse of fidgeting) in General Hammond's office as the man paced back and forth behind his desk. "We don't have control over him," he grunted, "and he's not one of ours. He's some kind of higher being, and we don't even know what kind, we just do our best not to piss him off, because we don't even know what he's capable of, other than coming back from being turned into sludge against the Iris. No, we have nothing to do with that. I don't think that we could stop him if we tried." The General sighed and stopped, facing away from the team. 

Jack made a phone sign with one hand, and twisted up his face into a weird, querulous expression at Daniel. Teal'c raised an eyebrow, not understanding Jack's unsubtle attempt at communication. For that matter, neither did Daniel nor Sam. Daniel shrugged, subtly pointed at Hammond and made a shushing motion, just as the General turned around. Hammond merely arched an eyebrow in an unconscious echo of Teal'c's earlier response, and continued listening to the telephone. 

"Yes, we'll have a memo sent out. Whoever sees him first will tell him that it was appalling behavior. Hopefully they won't be smited." 

"Smote," Daniel corrected quietly, unable to help himself. 

Hammond arched the eyebrow again. "Smote. Well, according to our sources, his name is the same as the Angel of Thursday, so smiting might actually be on the board. No, I don't think anyone actually thinks he's an angel. It's possible that the name of the angel came from him, but truth is, _we don't actually know_. What do we know? He doesn't need a Gate to get to other planets. He can appear and disappear into and out of locked and enclosed spaces as he pleases. He can get turned to sludge one moment and be perfectly fine in seconds. He can make a Gameboy, the component parts of which were _melted_ , not only work, but get the highest possible score on Tetris... No, it's harder than it sounds..." 

The General frowned as Jack snickered, but otherwise ignored him. 

"No, I believe the last time he was spotted, he helped SG1 with a communication problem. There seems to be no language he can't speak. Add that to his list of super-powers. According to the reports, there was another one that showed up as well, but that one doesn't seem to be making any waves." Hammond closed his eyes when Jack interrupted him. 

"He seemed to really annoy Cas," Jack piped up, then fell silent when his team shushed him. 

"That one goes by the name Gabriel, and that's all we know about him other than he apparently shares Castiel's planet hopping ability." The General rubbed his forehead with his unoccupied hand. "Presumably, that would be the Archangel Gabriel, but again, we don't know for sure. Look, it's in the reports. I could repeat every little thing we know about them if it would make you feel better, but as I told you, it's not much." 

"His brother made a wood baby," Sam stated. It was in a report already, but it bore repeating. 

"Supposedly one of his siblings is fond of bizarre practical jokes," Hammond said wryly, understanding the need for the reiteration of that particular piece of information. "There was a Weekly World News type of incident in Canada that Castiel said... what were the words? 'It looks like his work,' I believe." The General chuckled, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, but we still don't have a whole lot of information. It bothers us too." 

"Why a wood baby, though?" asked Jack, trying to be quiet. 

Sam's lips pursed, "He said that Jimmy saw a movie about it once." She shrugged. 

"And that still bothers me. Who the heck is Jimmy?" Jack frowned, glancing over at Hammond, who was again listening intently to the phone. "He just gestured at himself when I asked... Should I ask again?" 

"Yes, I understand," said Hammond, looking relieved. "We'll do our best. Thank you. Have a good day." He carefully hung up the phone and sighed. "Ask him who Jimmy is," Hammond ordered quietly. "Also, see if we can't get a way to contact him in case of incidents like today's." 

"What happened today, General Hammond?" Teal'c asked in that implacable way of his. 

"He wiped NID's _entire_ computer system," the General replied, the corners of his lips twitching as he said the words. "They are sure that he did more than that, but have no proof, because he wiped their video records as well. The only reason they even know he was there is because a technician saw him using the computers." Hammond chuckled and settled into his chair. "On that note, please, let him know that that isn't appropriate, but we aren't going to do anything but say the words, understand? As he seems to prefer contacting you, Colonel, you'll be the one in charge of telling him this. Thankfully, he seems to like you. I think that shows that he has the same questionable taste as the Asgard." 

"Why, thank you, sir," Jack replied wryly. "I'll be sure to mention that." 

"Why would he..?" Sam sighed, shaking her head. "I don't get it. Why did he wipe their computers? He said that he would use theirs, next time he needed to use one, but... did he find something he didn't like, do you think?" 

"On that note," said Hammond, eying Jack, "you had probably better ask him that as well." 

"Yes sir." 

"Now, however, it's time to get the actual meeting started. Let's start with clarification of this latest incident involving your team..." The General tapped a sheaf of papers that had been on his desk throughout the phone call. "Let's start with you, Colonel." 

"You'll have to be more specific, sir. There have been a lot of... incidents involving my team." Jack put on his most earnest expression and settled in for a long lecture, because he suspected that it was the incident in the mess hall that Hammond was talking about, and really, he didn't care what the guy with the ladle said, Jell-O was not a food. 

~@~

Daniel Jackson spent a lot of time going through ancient, crumbling texts, and he knew exactly how to treat them. Those over a certain age, or those that had been mishandled in the past, had to be treated with utmost care, so when Daniel flinched at the unexpected rustling sound behind him, his first reaction as the page crumbled was to gape at it in horror. A scent not unlike frankincense and myrrh with a faint overlay of brimstone and the smoky fragrance of expensive bourbon washed over his shoulder, and when Daniel turned his head, he was nose to nose with Castiel, whose blue eyes crinkled at the corners with faintly expressed amusement. 

"It's inaccurate," Castiel said, with a smile that was difficult to see from so close. 

The maybe-an-angel was standing far too close, and Daniel's spine prickled with discomfort. "How so?" he asked, trying to edge away unobtrusively. "Anyway, it's still expensive, one of a kind, and it's horrible, horrible, horrible that I just ruined the page! I... you shouldn't sneak up on people like that!" 

Castiel blinked at him then reached over his shoulder, gently flicking his finger across the disintegrated paper. It looked exactly as it had before Daniel had started handling it. "There. Not a problem now, is it?" asked Cas, tilting his head slightly as though gauging Daniel's response. "I will try to be noisier next time." 

Daniel coughed. "Dear god, no. If you did that, I might have killed more than a page. Just... don't appear so close, and then make a little noise as you close the distance, alright?" He waited for Castiel to nod before continuing. "I think... Well, Jack was supposed to tell you, because Jack usually sees you first, but... Since you're here, and I haven't heard about it, I'm going to assume that you haven't talked to Jack yet." 

"I have not," Castiel confirmed. 

"Alright." Daniel sighed, stepping away from the ancient text before he could accidentally redo what Castiel had undone. "He's supposed to say, what was it? The thing with NID's computers wasn't very nice, and that's pretty much it. Also, he was told to ask you, why'd you do that, and who's Jimmy?" He turned to actually look at the angel (probably not an angel, but whatever; it was getting irritating, dancing around the word in his mind, and at least it gave him something to think of Castiel as), who stood still, with his hands in the pockets of his beige trenchcoat. "And, why are you here, now? Usually, it's Jack you talk to, so... kinda weird, I think." 

Castiel shrugged. "It didn't seem to be something that Jack would care to think of. The library at Alexandria has been gone a long time, and such things seem to be your area of interest. As for your superiors' questions: there was something very inappropriate hidden in their system... and Jimmy is my brother, I suppose you would say; my twin." 

"You wanted to ask _me_ about the Library of Alexandria," Daniel asked dubiously. "Why?" 

"It was a human accomplishment, and it is no longer there. I cannot seem to find the entrance." Castiel looked nonplussed by this. 

"The fact that it isn't there anymore might be why you can't find the entrance," Daniel postulated, sighing. 

"No, that isn't it," the angel replied, with a single negatory head shake. "It's like a shell game," he added, frowning. 

"What?" 

"A shell game; you hide a small object under one of three identical larger objects and..." 

Daniel interrupted, "I know what a shell game is, Castiel. I'm asking _what_ is like a shell game?" 

In a gesture that seemed a little unlike the Castiel that SG1 was slowly growing used to, the angel pursed his lips and seemed to think about it. "How the entrance was hidden. I suspect that it was not hidden by humans." It sounded as though the very idea pained him. "Considering that the library was nearly destroyed... three, four times... As such, it is difficult to find the entrance." 

"Why does that make it difficult to find?" asked Daniel, growing mildly ill-tempered. If it was destroyed, it was destroyed... Yet, Castiel had said "nearly", so Daniel had to assume that Castiel didn't believe it was gone. 

"The one hiding it doesn't like tourists. I could go back to 47 BC, and still not find it. I suspect, as in the Garden, I'm supposed to do this manually." The angel sat in a nearby chair. "I suspect I wouldn't like to talk to Raziel anyway." 

"Raziel?" Daniel asked quietly. The book he had been deciphering had mentioned Raziel. 

"Don't trust the words in that book," Castiel said. "Raziel did not Fall, but one should expect him to be a bit tetchy, and not to like tourists." 

"I see." Daniel didn't see. "Is it all wrong?" he asked, indicating the book. 

The angel scanned the open page then flipped through several more, amazingly or not, not harming the book at all, in spite of his apparent lack of care. "Except for a few minor details," he shrugged. "It seems as though the scholars had nothing but particularly embarrassing details about each of..." Castiel waved a hand, indicating the book. "I haven't spoken to Raziel for quite some time, but I doubt he would like to be remembered as 'temperamental as a teething babe'; even were it true." 

"That... would be kind of embarrassing, wouldn't it?" Daniel tried to look at the page that the angel currently held open. 

"I think that it's more that that's most of what history remembers of him." Castiel skimmed the book further. "Unless you want to know things like that, this book is useless." He was silent for a long moment. "So you don't know where to find the entrance to the Library of Alexandria?" 

Daniel didn't have to even think about it. "No." 

"Pity. I don't suppose the SGC has any information about the realm of dreams?" 

That one deserved a little more thought. "Do you mean, like a physical location?" Daniel was surprised to find that he was losing patience with the angel. He had always thought that he was more patient than Jack; apparently not. Jack never even said that he found the angel's questions irritating, and if there was one thing Jack didn't bother to hide, it was irritation. 

"Yes," agreed the angel. 

"No, we don't." 

"Pity," he said again. Gently closing the book out of consideration to its age if not the information it contained, Castiel gave Daniel a long, considering look. "I won't be bothering NID again, unless they bother me first." He paused to continue examining Daniel's face. "I will not bother you next time. Jack seems easier with my presence." 

Daniel blinked and Castiel was gone. He had the uneasy feeling that he had unintentionally insulted a higher being. 

~@~

Aziraphale, Jimmy thought, looked a little like Brendan Fraser, only much shorter, and a little dumpy. He was friendly, almost too friendly, full of handshakes and, somewhat uncomfortably, hugs, for both Jimmy and Crowley, who turned red as Aziraphale appeared to squeeze the life out of him. The term "bone crushing hug" had never seemed so appropriate. "Crowley, dearest, it's so good to see you!" exclaimed the slightly dumpy blond. "I know you wanted to visit me, but it's hardly a problem for me to come to you, and you never call, do you? We're only ever a thought away, you know." Hug; crush; over-enthusiastic hug. 

The wannabe demon was glaring at Jimmy, who tried to keep the amused look off of his face. "Don't even say it," Crowley hissed. 

"Now, now, dearest, you are a guest here, aren't you? You should be a bit more polite, and shouldn't we go inside? I would love to see how this place is furnished." Jimmy amended his previous thought; Aziraphale looked like a short, dumpy, _very gay_ and British Brendan Fraser, emphasis on the very gay part, because there was just something about the way the angel moved that struck him that way. 

Crowley, on the other hand, was like a better dressed Agent Smith, and Jimmy couldn't even say that, because the Matrix probably wasn't out yet. He would have to look into that. Crowley was the one to hustle them into the kitchen, where he made tea for all three of them. Jimmy would have declined if Aziraphale hadn't been so... enthusiastic. 

Aziraphale remained enthusiastic up until he actually tasted the tea, whereupon he stopped to eye it curiously. "Dearest, what was in the box?" asked the angel, sniffing delicately at the tea. It smelled a bit like plum blossoms, and not at all like actual tea. "Not that it isn't good," he said, backpedaling quickly. "I just wasn't expecting it." 

Crowley gave Jimmy the evil eye and went back to check the box. "I think it's herbal," he said, "herbal" coming out like a filthy epithet. 

"Probably," Jimmy said, calmly sipping at his. It wasn't that bad, if one liked to drink watery perfume. The plum blossom scent seemed to cling a little, and it was kind of like drinking flowers. Strange, not too horrible, but not something he actually liked, either. Crowley wasn't wrong to blame him for the tea; after all, the thing with the Lipton was him too. Crowley had had it coming to him, though. "We're in the middle of a small prank war." 

"Oh," the angel replied, looking disappointed (and he did "disappointed" like Brendan Fraser when someone kicks his puppy; he also did "disapproval" in a similarly overdone way). "I don't suppose you have proper cream, do you?" 

The more Jimmy watched it done, the more he could almost grasp how Crowley did it, making things just appear. It was an abuse of angelic powers, and Gabriel did it all the time, but seeing Crowley do it... Jimmy could almost figure it out for himself. He idly flipped his cell phone in his hand, watching Crowley pull out proper clotted cream that he was trying to pretend didn't just appear out of nowhere. Jimmy didn't buy it, and apparently, neither did Aziraphale. 

"You didn't have to, my dear. Milk would have been more than adequate." Still, he looked grateful for it, and seemed to read Crowley's silence as a desire for the subject to be dropped, and quickly. "Mr. Novak, was it? I was wondering, all the way here, what it was that you and Castiel needed to know about... Well, about the ah... I can't call it an Apocalypse, can I? After all, it didn't finish up, so, it wasn't really the End of Days, was it?" 

"Yeah?" Jimmy frowned into his half-empty mug. "We were mostly wondering if both sides were pushing for it, I guess." 

"Indeed," agreed Aziraphale, right as, at the same time, Crowley muttered, "You got that right." 

"Of course, it would have been easier if Crowley had been willing to say something like that a little earlier." He smiled around the rim of the mug as he took another drink off of it. Aziraphale probably had the right idea, adding cream to it. "I'm sure Cas will be by eventually, if you want to hang around. I might even be able to find some real tea. I'm sure I hid it around here somewhere..." 

Crowley pointedly didn't gnash his teeth at that. Aziraphale did the "disapproving" look. 

"He ah, deserved it," Jimmy defended himself. "Like I said, prank war. It gets a little petty here and there, but the tea isn't the worst that happened." 

"He keeps threatening to call me by my... other name," Crowley whined, pouting. "I just short-sheeted his bed. And dumped glitter in his closet, which wasn't that good of a joke, because he didn't seem to care. He would go out in _jeans_ if I let him. So guess who had to clean that up?" Strangely, Aziraphale didn't look at all sympathetic. "I also may have inflicted a minor curse on him. He doesn't drink; so every time he tries to drink water, kablammo, wine. It's not as funny now that he's caught onto it." Crowley looked perfectly proud of that one. 

Jimmy made a face. Three days of attempting to drink water was irritating to say the least. Fortunately, that little curse of Crowley's didn't work on juice or coffee, or even tea. It also seemed to be wearing off, slowly but surely. "That's why I've been drinking so much coffee," he confided. 

"Boys will be boys, I suppose," sighed the angel. "What was it you were saying about real tea?" 

~@~

"Why am I hanging out with you freaks?" Cordelia sighed, bored out of her mind as she sat with Buffy and Willow (of all people) in the library of all places. Giles had wanted to talk to her, but it turned out that he just wanted to know how she was connected to Castiel. She wasn't really, and she told him so. She rather liked Jimmy, but hadn't really talked to him much since trying to introduce him to Buffy and getting Angel de-vamped; and seriously, that was a surprise; Angel, a vampire? She would never have guessed. "Hmm... what's this?" She pulled the book that caught her eye a little closer. The writing on the front looked pretty, but there was no way she could read it. With a disgusted snort, she pushed it away. 

It stopped suddenly before it slid more than a few inches, Giles' hand pressed flat on top of it. "I've been wondering what it is, as well," the librarian murmured. "It isn't one of mine, and I haven't the faintest idea how it got into my things." He traced the symbols on the cover with an air of frustration. "I have managed to read a few passages. In ancient Indian tradition they had something similar to Christian angels," he said, "beings of great power, ruling over the eternal struggle of good versus evil; terrible beings, with little care for humanity. Castiel said that some of his brethren are imprisoned all over the world, and that he intends to seek them out. Some of their locations were in this book." 

Aware that she might sound just a little too eager, Cordelia suggested, "Why don't you ask Jimmy? He was inside Cas' head, right?" 

"I don't think that's what they meant," Giles said, firmly massaging his forehead. 

"Couldn't hurt," Buffy muttered. "You know, for a Hellmouth, this place is so dead." 

"Hah, good one," giggled Willow. "I still want to know what Xander is. I mean, if I'm a demi-goddess." She didn't look like she actually believed it for one second. "Xander rattled him. Castiel seemed a little... you know... weird eye at Xander when he showed up, too." 

"Where are Dumb and Dumber, anyway?" Cordelia asked. Not that she actually wanted to see Xander and Jesse. It was just that she thought it wise to know exactly where they were, in order to avoid them better. 

"The boys are..." Buffy paused to purse her lips unattractively "...out being boys; talking about girls maybe. You know Jesse carries a torch for you. God knows why, but he does. And Xander... the less said, the better." 

"If the boys are talking about girls, shouldn't we be talking about boys... Sorry Giles." The redheaded nerd glanced up at Giles with an innocent smile. 

"Please, just pretend I'm not here. After all, I'm paid to be ignored." Collecting the book from the table, Giles retreated to his desk. "I'll be over here. Remember, this is a library, so talk quietly." 

Willow blinked after him. "Adults are so weird." Turning to Buffy, she asked, "And what do you mean, the less said about Xander the better? I _like_ Xander." 

"And that's the incredible sense of taste that shops at Sears," Cordelia snorted. "Besides, even Harmony could tell you who he likes." She had no idea why she was still here. "Seriously, though. Winter Formal. I'm willing to help you two for free, even. Because no one deserves to see what Willow would wear on her own. Also, Giles, do you have any books on the stock market? I need to be armed for the next time I talk to Jimmy." 

"Wait, what?" Buffy gave her a distrustful look. "Why would you need to read about the stock market? You're sixteen!" 

"He's really into it, and I barely knew enough to keep up," she said with a smile. "He's not rich yet, but I bet you he will be, because he knew more about it than my father does. I asked, just to make sure, and Daddy didn't know anything about Apple stocks, and Jimmy was talking about making a few investments in some newer companies that he says will get really big soon. So, I want to know more so I can keep up with what he's saying." Cordelia could tell that Jimmy knew what he was talking about; more, she could tell that he'd taken great pleasure in outlining, though vaguely, his statistical analysis of next decade in the market. "It was hard to follow," she allowed, "but that would make it easier." 

All three girls flinched when a large, glossy hardback thumped onto the table next to Cordelia. "The less I know, the better, I presume," said Giles, looking down at her over the rim of his glasses. The look in his eyes suggested that he planned on having a talk with Jimmy, and that wouldn't fit in with Cordelia's plans at all. 

"So..." Cordelia frowned, not backing down from the librarian's look. "Winter Formal, anyone?" 

The man sighed and returned to his desk. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Time: The Master's Dead (or In Which the Slayer Has a Little Accident) Time flies when you're having fun, and who knew that something so small as a carrot could bring out another Slayer? Angels are moving, and soon, the minions of Hell will take notice. The Prophet Chuck has a lot of writing to do, and visiting angels do little to ease his hangover.
> 
> Excerpt: "Somewhere out there, there's a Father wondering what he did right, with that one," Chuck said around his beer moments after the sound of rustling feathers had faded away. It hadn't been an easy day, but finding out that the manuscripts he had been working on since college weren't what he thought they were just had to be the worst of it. He licked his lips. "So, I'm a prophet, huh?" he asked his empty apartment, his eyes dropping to a picture he had sketched hours before. It was of a woman, standing on the edge of the road, her hair dark around her face and her pale dress faded to nothing. "A prophet..."

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, the best thing I can do down here is beg for reviews. :) Seriously. I have about two and a half chapters of this one written, and I would just love to see enough interest to convince me to keep writing it. Initially, I was just going to post the part with Jimmy, as a short story, but well... you see how that went.  
> Next time: The Road Less Traveled (aka: Castiel in Wonderland) In which our intrepid hero seeks out his longest fallen brother, and things get metaphysically messy.


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